Church leader co-owns lavish home with embezzler

Wife allegedly sets house on fire when she finds out

July 10, 1997
Web posted at: 10:01 p.m. EDT (0201 GMT)

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (CNN) -- The personal drama surrounding the head of the country's largest black church organization grew more tangled Thursday, with the revelation that he owns a $700,000 waterfront house in Florida with a woman -- not his wife -- who is a convicted embezzler.

And on Monday, Deborah Lyons , the woman who is the wife of the Rev. Henry J. Lyons, president of the 8-million-member National Baptist Convention USA, was charged with destroying property and setting a fire inside the same home, which sustained $30,000 in damage.

Rev. Lyons, the pastor of the Bethel Metropolitan Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, owns the home in the exclusive Tierra Verde section of the city with Bernice V. Edwards.

The St. Petersburg Times reported Thursday that Edwards was convicted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1994 of embezzling more than $60,000 in federal funds from an alternative high school.

Edwards, then executive director of the school, was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to pay $32,652 in restitution, court records show.

According to records cited by the Times, the National Baptist Convention helped pay her restitution for the embezzlement conviction.

Minister owns Rolls-Royce, boat

On Thursday, the New York Times also gave details of Rev. Lyons' allegedly lavish lifestyle, reporting that he owns a Rolls-Royce, two Mercedes-Benzes, a 23-foot pleasure boat and other property in addition to the Tierra Verde home. Edwards is co-owner of the Rolls-Royce, the newspaper said.

Lyons has been in Africa on a church-related trip and has not yet commented about his relationship with Edwards. The New York Times reported that Edwards was traveling with Rev. Lyons, who declined comment when reached by phone in Nigeria.

He and his wife are scheduled to appear at a press conference Friday.

Police records say Deborah Lyons allegedly set fire to the house after she discovered records listing her husband and Edwards as its co-owners. But she later told the St. Petersburg Times the fire was accidental and she had known about the home previously.

Records show Lyons aware of Edwards' criminal past

Court records in Wisconsin and Florida reveal a financial relationship between the minister and Edwards, the Florida newspaper reported.

In March, Edwards wrote a $25,000 check to a Clearwater company as partial payment for jewelry, including a 20.06-carat "Princess Cut Diamond." The check was written on an account shared by Edwards and Lyons. It bounced.

In October 1995, Edwards' lawyer asked a federal judge to release her from probation, pointing to her job as "National Public Relations Director" for the convention.

"The leaders of the National Baptist Convention and in particular Dr. Henry J. Lyons, its president, are fully aware of the criminal conviction of Bernice Jones and her sentence in your court," her attorney, Franklyn M. Gimbel, wrote in a letter to the judge. (Edwards, now 40, went by the name Bernice Jones at the time.)

"In order to assist Ms. Jones to fully meet all of her responsibilities under the sentence, the National Baptist Convention has advanced funds on a periodic, regular basis to Ms. Jones to address her restitution obligations," Gimbel said.

The school from which Edwards was convicted of embezzling money, Quality Skills Building Center, contracted with the Milwaukee public school system in the early 1990s to provide education services under Learnfare, a government program that penalizes welfare recipients if their children don't go to school.

According to prosecutors, Edwards repeatedly dipped into school funds in early 1992 for her own needs. She spent $5,600 on furs and other items, $3,800 on clothes, $1,000 for central air conditioning, $5,100 for a car, $3,000 for another car and $2,400 on car repairs.

Arthur Reid, the school's chairman, embezzled $30,000 to help pay for a funeral home he owned and took thousands more for other personal expenses, court records show.

The school closed in 1992. Edwards was indicted the next year. As part of a plea agreement, she admitted guilt to the federal embezzlement charge and promised to cooperate with prosecutors against Reid, her co-defendant. Reid later received a prison sentence.

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