Joel Osteen and his mega-church empire is caught in yet another scandal — with the mega-rich preacher scrambling to take in Hurricane Harvey victims after lying about his church being flooded!
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The television evangelist had to scramble when news reports came out of Houston that Osteen was refusing to take in flood victims at his Lakewood Church in Houston, which can hold nearly 17,000 people. The church had declared on social media on Sunday that "Lakewood Church is inaccessible due to severe flooding!"
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Leaked photos and videos, however, soon showed that Osteen and his properties were high and dry! Osteen is now insisting in a statement: "We have never closed our doors...We will continue to be a distribution center to those in need." But angry Houston residents are still fuming after struggling churches have already opened their doors to people in need.
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It's also just another scandal in the city for Lakewood, which has helped to give Osteen a
net worth of $50 million. As earlier revealed by
The National ENQUIRER, the church has also been caught up in a child-sex scandal and shady financial dealings.
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The ENQUIRER has learned that a suit filed in 2016 by the Wedderburn family claims their daughter Victoria was in her child-safety seat when a “representative of the church” grabbed the seat and Victoria, and “threw the seat off the church pew.”
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T family alleged about the 2014 incident that little Victoria “landed face first on the floor while still strapped to the safety seat,” and suffered “serious bodily injury and extensive mental and emotional damage.”
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Osteen approved a $15,000 settlement with the Wedderburns, who accepted the offer in 2016. In another scandal, church volunteer Alvaro Daniel Guzman was accused in court documents of touching a child assigned to his care “in an inappropriate fashion.” The alleged pedophile was axed over the accusations.
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In 2011, Guzman was arrested and charged — but never indicted. The freed man then
filed a lawsuit against Osteen that was later thrown out of court. Osteen himself, however, went on to face charges of using his non-profit church to promote his best-selling books, where the big bucks go directly to the preacher!
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Daniel Borochoff, head of the watchdog group Charity Watch, said: “A nonprofit needs to be acting in the public interest, and not in the private personal business interests of Joel Osteen.”
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Locals aren't surprised to see the church once again dodging responsibility with Houston in crisis. "Joel Osteen," said one resident, "keeps Houston in the snake-oil business!"
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