While I don't think a four-person board that includes the exec and the exec's personal assistant and another staff person is much of a "real" board, that is a board that provides oversight and accountability, the board of the Line of Fire ministry has resigned leaving the exec and organization with even less accountability and mounting legal and moral challenges. The issues seem to be consistent with charismatic leaders and this is no exception.
What's it going to take for folks to learn that these arrangements are simply bad ideas? Bottom line, a responsible, objective board can help reduce the frequency of these challenges among these type of nonprofits.
From the Roys Report:
As Messianic apologist Michael Brown faces sexual misconduct allegations from outside his organization, he’s losing support from within. All three members of Brown’s board have left this year, The Roys Report (TRR) has confirmed.
This is during the same time period a sex abuse scandal has eclipsed Brown’s Line of Fire ministry.
“One by one, they left,” said Ron Cantor, president of Shelanu TV and former Brown confidant. “My understanding is that there are no board members right now unless they’re new.”
When TRR contacted Line of Fire board member Cindy Panepinto last November regarding the allegations, she told TRR the board had four members: Herself, Brown, former personal assistant Scott Volk, and Jonathan Bernis, founder and president of the Phoenix-based Jewish Voice Ministries International.
Bernis quit earlier this month, citing health and family reasons. He told TRR earlier this week that Brown had brought on “some new, really capable board members,” but will only divulge it’s “at least two.”
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Panepinto, co-founder of Upward Call Ministries in Charlotte, North Carolina, told TRR this week that she resigned from the board two weeks ago. She said she has also resigned from her staff position as director of operations for Line of Fire. Panepinto didn’t give TRR a reason why she left both roles.
Volk, who was Brown’s personal assistant from 1997 to 2002, told TRR this week he resigned from the board in January. He declined to say why.
Volk was also a witness in an inquiry conducted earlier this year by Firefly Investigations that concluded that Brown had engaged in “sexually abusive misconduct” with former secretary Sarah Monk by swatting Monk’s rearend, kissing her, holding her hand, and allowing her to sit on his lap. The Firefly report also concluded Brown engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” that included “sexually related communication” with a second woman in the early 2000s.
Brown, a leader in the Brownsville revival of the late 1990s, was founding the FIRE School of Ministry at the time of the misconduct.
According to the Firefly report, Brown confessed to Volk that he was having a relationship with a married woman and told Volk he would end things. In a “heated” conversation with Volk, Brown’s wife, Nancy, forbid Volk from telling anyone, including Volk’s wife.
Brown hasn’t responded to TRR’s requests for names of any new board members. As Line of Fire doesn’t list board members on its site, questions remain as to who is now overseeing Brown.
Demand letters
This past week, Brown’s ministry fired off several legal demands to detractors who have commented or reported on various allegations about the organization.
On Tuesday, attorney Barry Arrington sent Cantor a demand and cease and desist letter, a copy of which Cantor’s attorney Richard Towne provided to TRR. The letter focused on comments Cantor made in a witness report about how Brown failed to warn a missions organization about an alleged predator.
In 2008, Brown’s FIRE School of Ministry removed volunteer mentor Keith Lashbrook for inappropriate behavior with young women but failed to warn Lashbrook’s mission organization, Globe, which oversaw a Haitian orphanage Lashbrook ran, TRR previously reported. Two years later, recently adopted children from Lashbrook’s orphanage began telling their new American parents that Lashbrook and his staff had abused them.
Along with three former FIRE leaders, Cantor recently signed a bombshell report that included 25 witnesses’ testimonies and documentation about sexual and spiritual abuse, some of which was not included in the Firefly report.
The demand letter gives Cantor two weeks to respond. Towne told TRR that he plans to send a response likely next week.
“As is our standard practice, we’ll review and evaluate the assertions in the letter and craft an appropriate response,” he said.
After Brown learned of child abuse allegations at the orphanage, he also allegedly encouraged families not to take legal action or publicize their concerns and to trust Globe.
“The sad thing about this situation is the mothers of the Haitian children, Natalie (Lewis) and Milissa (McGavin), say that the reason Mike Brown did not want them to sue Globe is because it’s not what Christians do,” Cantor said. “Yet he’s willing to sue somebody over information regarding the Haiti situation.”
Brown’s attorney, Arrington, was the attorney who represented families of victims of the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in a lawsuit against the gunmen’s parents. Arrington is now the chief legal counsel for the National Association for Gun Rights.
Blaise and Christina Foret, YouTubers with a show, “Wake up and Win” published an episode called, “Michael Brown Fired a Predator—Then Let Him Run an Orphanage in Haiti.” Brown’s attorney sent them a similar cease and desist and demand letter for retraction. The letter gives the Forets, who are also represented by Towne, two weeks to respond. Towne told TRR he’ll also provide a response to the Forets’ letter.
Arrington also sent Canadian journalist Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson a cease and desist letter with a demand for retraction on her reporting in her episode, “Two Predators on the Loose After Dr. Michael Brown and Globe Mission Coverup.” The letter also gives her two weeks to respond.
“I am collaborating with Ron and the other whistleblower on what took place and if we have gotten any information wrong, we will correct it,” Thompson told TRR. “But if it is Dr. Michael Brown’s word against those that we know to speak the truth, we will probably side with them.”
Arrington also sent a letter to TRR, but it wasn’t a cease and desist and demand for retraction letter. Rather it was a warning that cease-and-desist letters were sent to others with the advisement to TRR not to report the recipients’ defamatory statements in any of TRR’s future reporting.
“I hereby put you on notice of the falsity of these libelous allegations should you choose to include them in your future coverage,” the letter states.
The letter also included a statement from Brown.
“Claiming to speak for victims does not confer a license to lie,” Brown states in the letter to TRR. “The accusations made by certain persons about covering or abetting child sexual abuse in Haiti are vile and false, causing irreparable harm to many. These are especially horrific charges that have been repeated without regard for facts in something like a mob mentality.
“If those behind these baseless allegations wish to retract them and apologize, there is a way forward. If not, a truth-sorting process is needed to demonstrate both the falsity of their comments, and the harm they have caused. This is not about silencing anyone, but rather bringing truth where people think they can spew any kind of nonsense without consequence.”
Rebecca Hopkins is a journalist based in Colorado.
