Jackson Jambalaya

I love ya, JJ, but this is CNN/NBC/CBS type "reporting". You're better than this.

8:36 - Would it be more fair and balanced FOX reporting if it were a black church or Muslim place of worship?

Yikes, during the service?? At what point did they announce this, before the offering??

It's not a coincidence. I'm pretty sure it is public knowledge at this point. Church is trying to decide if they are going to press charges.

It also may be a coincidence but H.W. Bush laughed when he referred to a "deluded gunman" in Ford's eulogy. It may be a coincidence but he also phoned the FBI to establish an alibi that day in '63. It may be a coincidence but eyewitnesses reported seeing a group of men on the grassy knoll...

Kingfish, it may be a coincidence that this story posted and it is a really slow slow news day today.

Better duck, KF. Criticism and/or negative news about Broadmoor is not tolerated. (Nor is driving in front of one of their attendees either coming or going on a Sunday morning, but that's another matter.)

If he did it, he absolutely should be prosecuted.

i'm sure he will just to another church in another state--keep it quiet...thank you for posting this and sparing churches in the future from 'pastors' such as this

Surely they had Employee Theft Coverage in that indeed happened.

Should those who steal money (especially from God's House) be prosecuted?
Absolutely.
Should it be subject to newsprint?
Yes, sir, but only when the facts have been fully substantiated beyond hearsay and interpreting obscure land records.

Brown was Dr. Futral's little brother in Civitan Service Club at MC. Brotherhood. Let's see how this plays out.

IT IS NOT HEARSAY----THE PREACHER ANNOUNCED IT IN CHURCH !!!!

Follow the money !!!!!!!!!!!!

He’s just a lonely white guy....give him a break?

Now....had he been a black dude? Fry that low down pos!

Awwww hurt your little snowy butthole?

Stealing from a church and the church cannot decide if it is wrong?
Are you sure this is a church?

11:12. Cut them a break. Maybe it's a discount church that can only afford nine Commandments :-)

Uhh.. you can't decide to press charges for a felony. It's a crime against the state.

Let's see how much everyone loves the 'tough on crime' DA and Madison County court system when he goes after one of their own.

What is an "Executive Pastor?"

Oh, juicy! It may be old or common knowledge to those that attend there, but this is the first I have heard...well done KF!

11:58 The one with cuff-links... not those down in the trenches.

I don't understand why churches and non-profits DO NOT prosecute for embezzlement 9 times out of 10. All they do is let the embezzler go somewhere else and do the same thing. They are not helping the thief, they are harming everyone else the thief comes in contact with.

So sad. In any office, there is usually the opportunity to steal and the more trusted a person is, the more likely they could steal if they decided to do that. I wonder what percentage of crimes go back to either money, drugs or sex as the base cause for the crime.

I hate that this good church is forced to deal with this person who made a $300,000.00 mistake. I was raised to believe that sin is not ranked in any kind of scale, but from a criminal point of view, that amount of embezzlement cannot be overlooked and they probably won't. It will wind up as forgiveness at whatever level the individual members of that congregation are able to grant, and full criminal responsibility for the embezzler's actions.

That is the way it should be, and probably what will happen.

The Bible provides express guidance to the church in this matter. 'Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's'. This is now beyond a mere private church matter and is a felony against the public at large. The "public" should prosecute.

11:58, an Executive Pastor, or XP for the hipster church crowd, is a fellow with some business or administrative skills who prefers the cocoon of the modern church scene rather than the rough and tumble of the real world, and who enjoys the amenities of the pastorate, such as potential exemption from social security withholding and lucrative housing allowances.

I have attended Broadmoor in the past as a visitor many times, but do not attend now and go to a different church. I do not know this man or anyone on staff personally. However, I feel like this church is the body of Christ and a true Bible believing church with very good intentions and programs. We visited long enough to see the good in this church and their great mission works, especially. The sad thing about a situation like this, is that it can destroy the "Christian witness" of the church, especially to those who are new believers, or on the fence of investigating Christianity, etc. We all know that people are flawed. The only one who is not flawed is Christ. Human nature loves to see a man fall, but we must also show kindness and love to others, such as the current staff figuring this out. I'm sure the staff is hurt and figuring out the right way to go with their decision. Prayer for the pastor and staff to make the right and Biblical decision (key words, Biblical decision)is needed. I'm sure they all feel betrayed as well.

1:05 going outside on a rainy day without an umbrella is a mistake if you want to stay dry; embezzlement is a crime. He committed a crime.

10 years ago my church's business manager was arrested and convicted of stealing $250,000 from our church. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison. Our priest was very shaken by this as he never saw it coming. We had raised money for renovations and the business manager kept two sets of books. When the business manager was out one day, the company that had done the stained glass windows called asking about payment. The priest himself went and got the fake set of books and said it showed the glass company had been paid. Well, that exposed everything.

Of course changes were made like two people having to sign checks, etc. What I remember most about that event was at church one Sunday, the priest got up and said it was time to live what he preached. He said if we really believed in forgiveness, then we needed to go visit the imprisoned former business manager and tell him we forgave him. I know a few people who did. The church had insurance and was covered for 80% off the loss and the family of the business manager paid the other 20%.

Say what you will about them, but Broadmoor's parking lot is still prettier than most PARKS in this wretched state.

This smells like Fake News. But it does garner attention, which is all that seems to matter in "news" these days.

@ 1:05pm $300,000 is not a mistake. accidentally running your phone bill through the postage meter with a stack of office bills may be considered a mistake, but $300K didn't mistakenly end up in his pocket. it was carefully planned and executed.

I imagine Hugh Freeze would be available if they could convince him you don't need 5 stars atop a Christmas tree.

Broadmoor is an incredible church and I am sure this church will do what is best in this situation.

The Christian thing to do would be for this person to:

1-go to the police and confess
2-plead guilty and serve the punishment without appeal
3-pay back the money

i doubt anything will happen. and he will do it again at another church somewhere out of state. once a crooked pastor, always a crooked pastor

People do not mistakenly put over $300,000 in their own pocket. It is called stealing. If a poor person had stolen $30 from the church they would have called in the SWAT team. No jail time will be served it will be explained away because of some physical or mental health issue.

Yup. Fake news.

His linkedin profile says

"Riley Brown

Seeking a New Start"


Time to turn his life around!~

You all are just a bunch of people with too much time on your hands. If it doesn’t concern you, do not start unnessicary drama. People mess up, people do awful things. There’s room for redemption. I’m sure there are better things you could do with your time then rip apart a person 75% of y’all don’t even know. It’s not fake news, just fake people responding to it.

10:53am, so if a finance manager that you entrusted with your retirement nest egg of $300k stole it all, you’d have the same level of compassion and forgiveness, right?
Because I’m a church member and I always liked Riley and his family, and I will pray for them...doesn’t mean I can’t be mad that my family went with out luxuries from time to time, so that I could properly tithe and he could properly steal.

I know for a fact that much of this "stolen" money was given to families in need through the church. Someone is covvering it up and it is not Mr. Brown.

None of you super-sleuths have pointed out another prominent friend on this asshole's facebook page--the new US Attorney. Yeah, we're watching, Mike.

Damn! If we're to be judged by whose Facebook page we wind up on, most of us are in deep shit.

And, please....I'm not dense enough to believe a man who stole $300,000 simply took it and distributed it to 'those in need'.

But, as with Catholic Priests, the Baptists will forgive and let this guy move on to greener pastures and other victims.

Broadmoor member here. Albeit I am young. This makes me angry. I hate the division it is causing in the church. I hate that other, great staff members were let go because of budgeting issues and wonder how these missing funds influenced those decisions.

The proper response should be that he should go to jail. Period.

There should also be harsher laws against people who commit crimes by taking advantage of people's good will and altruism-- that to me is one of the worst crimes possible and the greatest risk to our society--it ruins people's trust and good will and willingness to give back to others.

Crimes like this absolutely disgust me. I personally will put a hold on giving to Broadmoor until they explain how exactly this happened and ensure future money donated is being stewarded well. The independent accounting procedures are a good first step.

Lastly it really makes me angry that some well-off dude in our church (sent his kids to private school) whose salary is supported by a church membership of other well-jobed to other rich people steals over $300,000.

Our response???

"Forgiveness"
"Let's look at their heart"
"Let's not be vindictive"
"He who has not sinned cast the first stone"


These same people if a poor kid / drug addict grabs a purse out of car or gets killed by a homeowner when trying to steal change out of a cupholder will say:

"thug!"
"serves him right!"

It's sickening. And until we confront those biases straight on, our society will not change for the better.

John 8:7
“So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

Jesus looked ahead to His work on the cross and offered the woman caught in sin, life. Christians should use every possible opportunity to forgive and to reach out with the gospel and the love of Christ, always remembering that we, too, are sinners in need of the Savior (Romans 3:23).
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

May God forgive me of my many sins!

Broadmoor member as well. This, unfortunately, is not Fake News. This happened and has to be dealt with. Our church has decided not to press charges, but have reported the findings to the IRS and MS Dept. of Revenue. And the church will fully cooperate with prosecutors if it is independently pursued, which I believe it will be.

Yes, there are mixed feelings about this whole situation, and it hurts my heart for those closest to him. I will do my due diligence to pray for the Brown family, but that does not go without saying that it makes my stomach turn when I think about it.

I am trying my best not to judge, that is God's job, but I am human and work hard every day to live right, but I am a sinner and I fail miserably on a daily basis, but God still loves me for some reason, and he still loves all that fall.

We have 30,000 different protestant denominations, I am sure this guy will slip into a position at another church. I ponder why Jesus' church is not united, and needs 30,000 different directions? We soon celebrate the 500th anniversary of the protestant movement on Halloween! The initial reason for the "reformation" AKA revolt is not part of any Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian church today. It appears all churches and staff should review the Gospels and return to Jesus in lieu of 30,000 different ideas. In fact, the only thing you can get the protestants to agree on is how much they hate Jesus' original Church!

Was that a crack towards the Catholics?

Hey 3:40 Anonymous, speaking of Hugh Freeze, right or wrong, he'd still be the coach at Ole Miss and Ole Miss's reputation, fund raising ability, recruitment ability, etc...would all still be intact if Ole Miss would not have backed Houston Nutt into a corner. Instead, Ole Miss pushed coach Nutt into litigation which resulted in discovery of all the inconvenient details. You know the rest of the story. Do you think Broadmoor may have had the benefit and resulting wisdom of watching that play out? Sometimes it's best to just cut your losses. Perhaps Pastor Riley was paid with the consent of some (a/k/a "Sr. Minister"), but without the consent of others, and now Riley is the scape goat? And what's this thing called the presumption of innocence we heard about back in school? Do you think that might still apply?

for the person who said that they know for a "fact" that he gave the money to families in need- Well, If he did , then he had only had a few ways of doing that. 1-writing a check to the family (which would have been traceable) 2-taking cash out of the church account, which would have been "detectabe only by amounts per day/month/qtr" (which you would have thought would have been questioned) or 3-he just took a lot of cash that was reported in giving. I think this is what happened. I think the church probably kept cash in a safe for many various situations where it be to pay for pizza for daycare workers, buying donuts for a meeting, etc. What I think happened is in my own opinion is that the cash giving was accounted for and then not all deposited correctly and that he was keeping side amounts of cash each week -after the earnings were reported , but instead of depositing the cash earnings, he just kept them for himself. By him doing this here and there, it was untraceable. I think if the church was able to go back week by week and compare reportables verses deposits, the amounts would be off tremendously.

In this community of Madison, Broadmoor came on the scene like gang busters. Their new age Baptist approach is supposed to make members feel at ease and that their sins are wiped out just by attending their services. What they’ve done is hijacked the town. Every member is so scared to be seen around town enjoying a glass of wine that they drink in dark corners in Jackson or Ridgeland. So here comes a juicy true story about embezzled money by a pastor and the church doesn’t want to press charges. I know as a member of this community in Madison that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you press charges against a pastor, you’re a wicked horrible person preying on a man that is weak. If you don’t press charges, you’re a weak person and are horrible. In Madison, there is such a community of hatred seething underneath the fake smiles and cheap conversations. The town is brimming with gossip about this man and the church. It’s utterly ridiculous and a no win situation.

They need to take a very close look at the head pastor that left after this situation. It is not as cut and dry as he did it. Politics of the church played into this as well as a dishonest lying head pastor!

Anonymous:

I have know this young man for a long time. He says he did not do what he is accused of and I do believe him. I do think he was a victim by being used by his superior, seems awful coincidental that he left the state shortly after the incident. I have not proof of anything but feel that there needs to be a further investigation and hopes tp clear this young man's name. We all have need of forgiveness at one time or another in our life. He is serving his time so now is the time for people to begin to forgive.