Televangelist Rev. Marcus Lamb has become the latest preacher to publicly admit to having an affair. However, this disclosure came with an allegation of extortion. Lamb appeared with his wife, Joni Lamb, to admit to an affair on this show “Celebration” and alleged that three people had demanded $7.5 million or they would reveal the affair.
The disclosure came on the couple’s website of Daystar Television Network. On the show, he stated “They’re trying to take our pain and turn it to their gain . . . We’re not going to take God’s money to keep from being humiliated.”
Lamb says that he went to the police with the extortion claim.
The ministry appears to be based in Georgia. Here is the extortion statute that applies in Georgia:
O.C.G.A. § 16-8-16 (2010)
§ 16-8-16. Theft by extortion
(a) A person commits the offense of theft by extortion when he unlawfully obtains property of or from another person by threatening to:
(1) Inflict bodily injury on anyone or commit any other criminal offense;
(2) Accuse anyone of a criminal offense;
(3) Disseminate any information tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule or to impair his credit or business repute;
(4) Take or withhold action as a public official or cause an official to take or withhold action;
(5) Bring about or continue a strike, boycott, or other collective unofficial action if the property is not demanded or received for the benefit of the group in whose interest the actor purports to act; or
(6) Testify or provide information or withhold testimony or information with respect to another’s legal claim or defense.
(b) In a prosecution under this Code section, the crime shall be considered as having been committed in the county in which the threat was made or received or in the county in which the property was unlawfully obtained.
(c) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution based on paragraph (2), (3), (4), or (6) of subsection (a) of this Code section that the property obtained by threat of accusation, exposure, legal action, or other invocation of official action was honestly claimed as restitution or indemnification for harm done in the circumstance to which such accusation, exposure, legal action, or other official action relates or as compensation for property or lawful services.
(d) A person convicted of the offense of theft by extortion shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than ten years.
HISTORY: Code 1933, § 26-1804, enacted by Ga. L. 1968, p. 1249, § 1; Ga. L. 1992, p. 6, § 16.
Option 3 would appear the relevant provision: “Disseminate any information tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule or to impair his credit or business repute.” Notably, however, adultery is still a crime in Georgia (as raised in option 2). Pursuant to § 16-6-19: “A married person commits the offense of adultery when he voluntarily has sexual intercourse with a person other than his spouse and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished as for a misdemeanor.” I have previously written about such adultery laws and how they are presumptively unconstitutional (see also here).
According to his bio, he and his wife live in Dallas. It appears that extortion is simply folded into the theft provision in that state.
If the allegation is true, an extortion charge would appear warranted. None of this, of course, relieves Lamb of the hypocrisy of lecturing people on morality while a practicing adulterer.
There is even a song that goes with this inglorious moment called Now Behold the Lamb of God:
Now behold the Lamb
the Precious Lamb of God
Born into sin that I may live again
He’s the precious Lamb of GodWhen I always didn’t do right
I went left, He told me to go right
But I’m standing right here
in the midst of my tears, Lord
I claim You to be the Lamb of God
Source: CNN and Clarion Ledger
Jonathan Turley
rafflaw,
Did you just want to ask me questions then answer them yourself before I respond? Go right ahead if it amuses you. But it will not make you an less presumptuous.
More innocent women (and I would say men as well) have gotten screwed by adultery than Bernie Madoff ever screwed with his Ponzi scheme. If Bernie had screwed one person it would still have been criminal.
And so if you want to count sheer numbers of persons screwed by adultery in comparison to the number of persons getting screwed by Madoff, Madoff is merely a blip on the radar. This is somewhat my point.
And if we want to compare the hundreds of billions of dollars lost to mostly women who diverted their careers with the few wealthy people who lost (to Bernie) far more money than most of these betrayed women could ever dream of, the amount (in the aggregate) they lost pales in comparison.
Bernie’s thievery was a problem between two people as well. If that is your criteria, it still fits my argument better than yours.
Tommy,
“Lighten up Francis!” Noone is slamming Christians. We are slamming someone who claims to be Christian who is obviously not following in Christ’s footsteps. Not to mention making millions off of other Christians. Is he going to give a discount to all of his followers now that he has admitted to an affair. Why don’t we care more about the wife who has been lied to?
Do you people really think that just because a man is a Christion that he will be perfect. Why must you all find it necessary to cast the “first Stone”. We all make mistakes whether you are a Christian or not. The point is to help the other person not point out how much better you are than them>
First, irony and coffee courtesy of Dick Cheney.
Now, irony and hypocrisy sauce served over Lamb.
Man, there is some good eatin’ going on today!
google ‘sheaves’ they are not sheep! Good parody though.
Tootie, I’d like to introduce you to the real world but fear the shock would be more than your tiny brain could take. You just keep living in that fantasy one you have built and you should get by. It would be equally nice if you would stop popping up in the real world to insist your delusions are the only reality but I think the intrusions are part of your delusion so I doubt you will.
Mr. Ed.,
I like the “quantity discount” idea. Maybe even a Christmas extortion sale!
Straight sex gets a 30% discount on extortion rates. Then there’s the 10% clergy discount. How about a 5% quantity discount? Professional rate? Local service call mileage? Satisfaction warranty?
There are so many ways to cut that $7.5 mill down to its actual size around three bucks, dontcha think? I mean, he wasn’t even trying to deal. The case is only worth pocket change. Hell, I wouldn’t pay more than a dollar a snatch, but that’s me.
Tootie,
Are you suggesting that only Christians have a high sense of justice and fair play? Pretty arrogant, dont you think? Where is your evidence by the way? Quoting the Bible is evidence? Adultery is a fraud worse than Bernie Madoff’s??? Adultery is a problem between two people and a family. How many people got screwed by Bernie’s fraud?
It appears that Mr. Turley (or who ever wrote the posting) only asserts (out of thin air apparently) that it is unconstitutional to make adultery a criminal offense. He provides no evidence.
He has surely admitted by implication that the states have some power over the matter because he counsels that it be a civil penalty only. Then from there he instantly leaps to the fiction that that means adultery cannot be a criminal offense. He leaps to the fiction that if it is a criminal penalty then it cannot be constitutional but doesn’t prove it in his post or in the links provided as to what part of the Constitution is violated. And he does all this while he implies that the state has this power in the first place to make it a civil offense. If it has the power to make it a civil offense it has the power to make it a criminal one.
States can criminalize anything they want as long as they don’t violate Federal law. And Federal law says nothing about where to classify adultery. It is completely silent except for the 10th Amendment.
If a state doesn’t have the power to criminalize adultery, please quote that power to me directly and explicitly from the Constitution. I seem to have missed that clause.
The 10th Amendment is the only place where the Constitution touches the matter and it doesn’t say that adultery cannot be criminalized. In fact, it leaves the matter entirely in the hands of the states. Exactly in the hands of the people who even now legislate in the matter lawfully as a criminal offense.
The Tenth Amendment doesn’t even say or imply that atheists cannot criminalize adultery. So it’s a big win for everyone. It leaves the matter wholly to the states whether they are populated by Baptists or atheists.
Turley (or who ever wrote the post) allows that states have the authority to decide the matter, then disallows (apparently out of thin air) that even though they have the right, they don’t have the right to criminlize it. He apparently just makes this part up because the Constitution says no such thing.
The same place he finds a remedy for handling the problem (in the Ten Amendment) is exactly the same place which allows states to criminalize it.
The reason (and I speculate here from history and knowledge of the people of America and who my ancestors were) that adultery was criminalized is because it was recognized by people with high sense of justice and fair play (i.e. Christians) that when adultery wasn’t severely punished women and children were plunged into the severest of poverty, want, or danger because of what the man (usually) did to her and likely her children.
He (generally) does this when he commits adultery and thus is no longer welcome in the home in which she was tending to him, washing his stinky underwear, and raising their children while neglecting 20 of her best years needed to pad her resume and further her education while he continues to do so because of HER service to him as was understood by the customary agreement between the two when they married.
He (or she) broke this contract or agreement. He or she committed the worst of frauds. Worse than Bernie Madoff because they shared the same bed. Even Bernie is in jail for the rest of his life for the fraud he committed.
It is fallacious to think just because these laws have a religious aspect, that they are therefore unconstitutional. The worst you can say about them is that the contracts or agreements between couples are not written better.
To say that criminalizing marriage is unconstitutional because of their association with a religion is to make merely a weak assumption based on a genetic fallacy.
Certainly the Constitution permits criminalizing marriage. And I’ve provided the evidence that it does.
These people are so damn boring … same old sin, same old tears
Holy WiggyLeaks Badman, the yeast of ye shall be the greatest.
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/12/keystone-complex-to-rescue-6.html
I like his creative excuse as opposed to the usual one I hear from that crowd:
Maybe Lamb did not have intercourse. Clinton didn’t since it depended on what is is. Maybe Lamb just got a Lewinsky in his Oval Office equivalent.
If the dick didn’t fit you must acquit.
Maddow did “The Televangelist Infidelity Matrix” on her show last night so you could keep track of who’s who’s in that club more easily. It’s one of the video clips (list n right side of page)available on the Maddowblog:
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/01/5562133-weird-drummer-guy-ellison-sharia-law
Stans comment about selling pie in the sky is right on and I do like AY’s choice of songs.
Bringing in the Sheep (Sheaves)…has an origin of its own…maybe the Good Pastor heard this version while a young lad……..
“Bringing In The Sheaves” by Traditional
Misheard Lyrics:
Banging in the sheets
Banging in the sheets
We shall come all over
Banging in the sheets.
Original Lyrics:
Bringing in the sheaves
Bringing in the sheaves
We shall come rejoicing
Bringing in the sheaves
The usual ministerial hypocrisy and corruption.
Nothing new here.
Even the followers falling in line, continuing to write checks and support their favorite reverend, selling pie in the sky when you die.
Oh, that’s ok, Lamb.
We’ll just see the extortion as needed extra punishment.
…ZOUNDS……….Say it isn’t so, another Man of God struck down by the evils of adultery???…what in tarnation is the world co0ming to I ask you??….if it isn’t pointy hatted dudes diddling kids now the very bastions of faith again are rocked by the evils of an illict affair…………its shocking, but hell man ohhhhhh so sweet to see the hypocrisy of faith in action……but am sure that God in his infinite wisdom will forgive along with a healthy dose of cash eh………………..gotta love it eh.
How do you spell hypocrisy? What a piece of work this “minister” is! I just don’t understand how people can listen to and donate money to these kind of characters. Don’t you have to live like Christ when you are telling people to live like Christ did?