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STAR-NEWS P,ASAOENA
•
' SATURDAY, FEUUARY 17, 1979-J
•
Hader draws line
on church inquiry
By DICK LLOYD
Staff Writer
I
When the receivership on the
Worldwide Church of
God
has
been lifted and the attorney gen
eral is off the premises, church
officials will answer all questions
the attorney general has concern
ing charges that church officials
have diverted millions of dollars
for personal use, church spokes
man Stanley R. Rader said
Fri
day.
But the church wilJ continue
to
resist, Rader said, "until they
( state agencies) realize they
have made a terrible mistake" in
imposing a receivership and
tak
ing over property of the church.
"The attorney general is com
pletely wrong-headed on his ap
proach to this matter." said
Rader, challenging Attorney
General George Deukmejian to a
debate on the church
vs.
statP
issue.
He said the state code dealing
with non-pr ofit corporations
··doesnot give power to examine
or seize and desecrate church
property.
"This is a state vs. church is
sue," Rader reiterated at a press
conference at which he softened
charges he leveled a week ago
that Judge Jerry Pacht ccmduct
ed illegal proceedings
in
impos
ing a receivership
on
the church.
On the recommendation of his
attorneys, Rader modified state
ments he made a week ago that
Judge Pacht was involved in a
"criminal conspiracy" to con
duct secret and illegal proceed
ings to place the church in receiv·
ership.
Judge Pacht has indicated that
the complaint filing and the re
ceivership order were done si-
Tum to RADER,
Back page, this section
Rader draws line on Deukmejian inqui
ry
Continuedfrom Page A-1
multaneously and that the hear
ing was not
secret.
A court re
porter
was present and a tran
script was available the next day,
according to Pacht.
Attorneys for Rader, the trea
surer of the $80-million religious
- empire said, advised him that
Judge Pacbt "is not the real vil
lain of this sorrowful episode.
"Rather, they urge that Judge
Pacht was as much a victim as
was the church . . . . because it
was Mr. (Hillel) Chodos (attor
ney for the plaintiffs), Mr. (Law
rence) Tapper (deputy attorney
general), al
ong
with Judge (Ste-
ven)
Weisman (receiver), who
deceived, deluded and duped
Judge Pacht - who otherwise, in
the opinion of my counsel, would
not. have acted as he did," said
Rader.
Rader said bis new stance
regarding Judge Pacbt was nei
ther an apology nor an attempt to
mitigate against possible recrim
inations for remarks he made
about the situation and Judge
Pacht.
"If anything I've said about
Judge Pacht is untrue," said
Rader, "I would welcome him
suing me.
Maybe
bis condition
was such that rather than being
part (
of a
conspiracy). he
was a
dupe - he was a victim."
But if the facts turn out to be as
he stated a week ago, said Rader,
"then
I
want Jerry Pacht to be
censured and removed. And if he
denies it, we'll go after him."
A week ago, Rader charged
corruption in the court system.
Friday he said, "I trust that my
counsel are, indeed, correct
because I would prefer to under
stand that the corruption
in
gov
e rnment, that Watergate re
v�led so very recently
to
all of
us, does not exist in the judicial
system of California and in the
Los Angeles SUperior Court sys-
tern
in particular."
Rader'
s
p ress conferenc e
seemed to deepen a
dispute
over
who
cauBed the collapse of the
$10.6-million sale of the Texas
campus of Ambassador College
at Big 8-dy. Rader blamed the
state-ordered receivership for
tying�thedeedtransfer.
OnThwsday, Hodge Dolle Jr.,
an attorney for Southern evange
list William Menge, said escrow
proceediags for the salehadbeen
termiaaieill because the church
failed io
wa
all the required
doct:aDeiiiK-.er to the titlecom
pary.