Another Minister from HeLL

A Pastor’s Job Offers Become a Curse

By DAVID GONZALEZ

Published: April 22, 2010

•  Luis Malagon felt blessed when he, his wife and their daughter were offered $11,000 a month to work at a new religious social service agency being planned in Brooklyn. He quit his job as a building inspector in South Carolina in February, put his house up for sale and borrowed money to move to Sunset Park.

Isidro Bolaños

Related

• City Room: Tracking a Pastor and His Promise of Jobs (April 22, 2010)

• Church Hires Hundreds, but Doubts Surround Project (March 30, 2010)

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Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

Luis Malagon moved to Brooklyn with his wife, Maria, center, and daughter Massiel. Promised jobs, they now face eviction.

Settling into a cramped apartment, they waited for the project to begin on March 1. When it did not, they said, they were summoned to daylong religious services presided over by its leader, the Rev. Isidro Bolaños, who offered harangues and excuses.

Today, the Malagons are out of work, money and time. The paychecks they had been assured were in the mail never arrived, putting them on the verge of eviction. Their New York sojourn has gone from blessing to curse, and they are moving to a relative’s apartment in Florida.

“I have nothing,” said Mr. Malagon, 61. “I feel like an ant. Look at everything we gave up to come here.”

The Malagons are among hundreds of Latino evangelical Christians in New York who thought they had been hired by Mr. Bolaños, and who provided him with copies of theirSocial Security cards, driver’s licenses and other vital records. While the minister’s associates insist that the agency will eventually open, Mr. Bolaños has left for Nicaragua on what an associate calls a missionary trip.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office and the New York police say they have begun investigations into the project. And Latino evangelical leaders around the city have scheduled mass meetings and religious services in the next two weeks to help fellow pastors and congregations affected by its falling apart.

It is still unclear why Mr. Bolaños, the pastor of a storefront church in Red Hook, falsely told employees that he had a grant from the international relief organization World Vision and offices in a city-owned building at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. He has not responded to numerous letters and e-mail messages seeking comment, except for a brief phone interview on March 25 that he ended when asked about the false claims.

But one member of his inner circle has concluded that from the plan’s first stirrings last winter, Mr. Bolaños misled him and the other pastors who recruited their congregations for the project.

“We never doubted, because since he was a minister, we never thought he would lie to another minister,” said that member, the Rev. Gonzalo Rodriguez, who has served as secretary to an executive council of pastors Mr. Bolaños assembled. “Why should he lie? But we were never, never, never given correct information.”

Mr. Rodriguez, pastor of Riverdale Community Church in the Bronx, was among the first clergymen hired by the project, which promised to send hundreds of people to counsel and preach to the poor and vulnerable. He said he was especially impressed when Mr. Bolaños said he had been chosen to run the program by World Vision.

But when World Vision officials confronted Mr. Bolaños in late January about that false claim, they say he denied ever invoking its name. He told them he had received “government funds” for the project, said Tim Bomgardner, who directs World Vision’s New York programs.

Mr. Bolaños told a different story to his executive council, Mr. Rodriguez said: His new backer was Kristina Morris of the American Holding Charities Group, which he said was run by “Christian Jews.” (A national database search has turned up no mention of Ms. Morris or the group.)

American Holding Charities Group appeared to be as generous as it was mysterious. Mr. Rodriguez said Mr. Bolaños promised him and the other council members a salary of $65,000 a year, a new Lexus and the chance to purchase a church building for $1.

Many people quit their jobs in anticipation of the project. The Malagon family learned about the plans during a Christmas visit to relatives in New York. When they were hired, they said, a relative gave them $7,000 to move; Mr. Malagon then borrowed $3,000 more from a family friend to cover expenses after Mr. Bolaños promised they would be paid on March 15.

“This is a done deal,” Mr. Malagon said Mr. Bolaños declared. “Take out a loan if you must, because your money is assured.”