ATLANTA - The 80-year-old leader of a megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying under oath about his sexual affairs and was sentenced to 10 years' probation. Archbishop Earl Paulk, who has been in ill health, was also fined $1,000 on a single felony count.
The charges stem from a 2006 deposition Paulk gave in a lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church by former church employee Mona Brewer, who said she was coerced into an affair.
In the deposition, Earl Paulk said under oath that the only woman with whom he had ever had sex outside his marriage was Brewer. But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother's son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church.
As part of Brewer's lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk.
"It was a fair and just resolution of the case for a man who has lived his whole life and done wonderful things but made a mistake," said Earl Paulk's attorney, Joel Pugh. "He's ready to move on."
Paulk turned himself in to authorities Tuesday night after a warrant was issued for his arrest the previous day. The warrant was the result of a months-long probe by Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
Head called the sentence "certainly adequate" for Paulk, who had never been charged criminally before.
Paulk could have been sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison. Cox said the sentence was not unusual for someone like Paulk, who has no prior record and whose health is "frail."
Paulk has been in bad health for the past couple of years after a battle with cancer, limiting his activity with the independent charismatic church he and his brother founded in 1960.
At its peak in the early 1990s, the Cathedral at Chapel Hill claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. The church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary outside Atlanta.
Today, membership is down to about 1,500; the church has 18 pastors, most of them volunteers; and the Bible college and TV ministry have closed — a downturn blamed largely on fallout from the sex scandals.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080116/ap_on_re_us/preacher_paternityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_PaulkJust wondering how similar is this church to some of the local megachurches....
