Televangelist Ernest Angley And His Grace Cathedral Church SUED For $3 Million

A Pentecostal televangelist out of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio is being sued for $3 million. Ernest Angley is said to have defaulted on the loan taken out by the Cathedral Church’s broadcasting network and drained a woman’s life savings.

The suit says Beck, a Raveena-based oil and gas company, loaned $3.6 million to Winston Broadcasting Network Inc. in January 2013, which used the money to pay a PNC Bank mortgage. According to Cleveland, the 39-page lawsuit filed on November 29 in Summit County Clerk of Courts by Beck Energy Corporation Inc. names Winston Broadcasting Network Inc. and Grace Cathedral Inc. as defendants. It seeks damages and a foreclosure on the Cuyahoga Falls property.

In addition to the loan from Beck Energy, WBN President Edwina Brown signed a promissory note to ensure the loan would be repaid. Angley signed a guarantee agreeing to pay the multimillion-dollar loan on behalf of WBN if they defaulted, the lawsuit says.

The 96-year-old Angley, a native of North Carolina, settled in Akron in 1954 and in 1994 bought the round, 5,400-seat Cathedral of Tomorrow, formerly operated by televangelist Rex Humbard, in Cuyahoga Falls. The complex, at 2700 State Road, was rededicated as Grace Cathedral. Angley has churches in Springfield Township and Cuyahoga Falls and broadcasts sermons on WBNX television. The television station is housed at the cathedral. –Ohio.com

The lawsuit states that the loan was supposed to be paid from February 2013 to February 2016. A one-year verbal extension was granted to the WBN, but the loan remained unpaid, according to the lawsuit.  Beck allegedly sent a letter to WBN in April requesting repayment. Angley responded to the letter in July saying the matter was being handled, according to court documents.  “I have received your letter and I appreciate your confidence in me,” the letter said. “I didn’t intend for it to take this long and I will be able to pay the $3,600,000.00 in just a very short, short time.” However, Beck never received a payment, the lawsuit says.

Oh but the misdeeds of Angley get even worse than an unpaid loan. Angley allegedly snagged a woman’s life savings too.

Ernest Angley’s church is accused of coercing an elderly woman in suburban Chicago to hand over her life savings in the amount $340,000.  According to the CBS affiliate in Chicago, WBBM, Bridget Pollard, 76, has lived by herself since her husband died in 2015. The childless woman lived in hoarding conditions and blocked relatives’ efforts to help her, Pollard’s niece Bridget Johnson told the TV station. The niece told the station that Pollard emptied out her late husband’s state pension and then wrote a $340,000 check to Grace Cathedral, Angley’s megachurch in Cuyahoga Falls.

According to the woman’s niece, she hadn’t been to the church in years. “She was basically stalked by the church to give money,” Dawn Lawkowski-Keller of the Public Guardian’s Office told WBBM. “The literature talks about how you’ll go to heaven if you give this money.” The Public Guardian’s Office is now suing the church for the money. “I was able to freeze $340,000 in their bank account at Huntington Bank,” Lawkowski-Keller told the Beacon Journal/Ohio.com