Post by MsKayLander on Sept 25, 2007 16:42:32 GMT -5
Sex, lies and audiotape roil historic black church
By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor 28.JUN.07
The ongoing saga of the fate of historic St. Paul Baptist Church has taken on a life of its own — not just a life, but a new life, a gestating life, an embryonic life. The church’s controversial pastor, the Rev. Joel Anthony Ward, has impregnated the choir director and the two are due in court Thursday to deal with a restraining order the preacher’s baby mama has had against him since June 6.
Ward, 54, admitted to his church membership on June 3 that Tarshia Rodgers, 37, a third-generation member of St. Paul and director of the church choir, is pregnant with his child. That public admission came a week after Rodgers recorded a series of obscenity-laced threatening conversations with Ward, two days before the Los Angeles Police Department issued Rodgers an emergency protective order against the minister, and three days before Rodgers obtained a temporary restraining order against him in Superior Court.
Thursday’s court hearing will determine whether Rev. Ward will be permanently restrained from coming within 100 yards of Rodgers and her 8-year-old son, and forever barred from “harassing, attacking, striking, threatening, assaulting, hitting, following, stalking, and molesting” them, or contacting them in any way at any place by any means.
Rodgers said she had been having an affair with Ward for eight years, commencing when they were both married to other people. Both are now divorced from the spouses they cheated on. Rodgers said she learned she was pregnant early last month and Ward, already the father of three, did not want another baby and did not want the public to know that Rodgers was going to give him one. Rodgers said Ward wanted her to shut up and have an abortion.
According to the court documents, Ward beat and threatened to kill Rodgers in an attempt to get her to shut up and abort. In the documents, Rodgers said the preacher has “shaken me and pushed me around.” She wrote that he has two guns, and “threatened to use his gun to kill me. He said that the gun is under his bed or in his office and [for me] not to be stupid because he will use it on me.”
Rodgers states that on or about May 20, Ward “punched me in my stomach repeatedly. He also pushed me and shoved me and choked me … in a public place. He threatened to take me up to a hill in a neighborhood and shoot me and then shoot himself. He said ‘I will take you on the hill and kill you and kill myself. Then we’ll really be like Romeo and Juliet.’”
On the Sunday that Ward admitted to his congregation that he and Rodgers are pregnant, Rodgers said the pastor whispered to her in the church: “You have really f—ed up. You have not seen me angry. You don’t know what I’m capable of when I’m angry.” Rodgers said Ward telephoned her so frequently and threatened to kill her and himself that she was moved to tape his threatening calls. She made copies of the tape. She gave one copy to the police, one to the court, one to her attorney, one to the chairman of St. Paul’s deacon board — and one to me. Mercy!
I listened to that tape Tuesday morning and I must say I have never heard such foul language coming out of anybody’s mouth than that spewed by the Rev. Joel Anthony Ward to his paramour. His language is so obscene that it would make the late rapper ODB and Lil’ Kim blush. His berating and debasing conversations with Rodgers are replete with the F word and the colloquial anatomical “p” and “d” words. Makes certain she knows who he is, as he identifies him several times, thusly: “I am Joel Anthony motherf—ing Ward, the best man you’ll know since Jesus,” and “I am Joel Anthony Ward and don’t you forget it.”
He says: “I will motherf— you up. I have the key to your house, I can get in any time I want,” and he screams: “I am going to kick your ass. Not beat it, but kick it and kick it like it’s never been kicked before.” At this point, Rodgers replies: “No you won’t,” to which the preacher screams: “Who’s going to stop me? You? You? Are you going to stop me? Nobody can stop me!” to which Rodgers mumbles something stupid and calls him “daddy.” (I must confess, I am extremely angry with Rodgers’ reaction to Ward on this tape. She was so weak and obsequious that I wanted to kick her *** myself.)
At one point on the tape, the minister of God got carried away with the sound of his own voice and proceeded to describe, in whorehouse terms, the various and sundry sex acts the pair had performed and accused Rodgers of letting some other man put his (street term deleted) in her (street term deleted). Rodgers denied this and reminded Ward of his current affair with another woman, to which the preacher replied: “I’m f—ing two women; three, if I count you.”
What is particularly freaky about this tape is that at the conclusion of a obscene tirade, Rev. Ward bursts into song and begins belting out a hymn!!
I called Rev. Ward Tuesday to talk about his relationship with Rodgers, the restraining order, his felony child abuse conviction (which we’ll discuss shortly) and about the tape. He said his lawyer told him not to talk about anything. I said: “Well, you just listen. I’ll talk. I have a copy of the tape.” After I said that, he wouldn’t shut up. He immediately and agitatedly responded: “That was a private conversation between me and someone I was close to. She did not have my permission to make that tape. That is an illegal tape.” In the next breath, he denied that it was he on the tape. “It wasn’t me,” he insisted.
“You have a real foul mouth on you, preacher. Did they teach you that in the seminary?” I asked. “I was provoked. You didn’t hear what she was saying to me,” he responded.
Me: “I heard every word the two of you said, including your threats to kick her ass and your having the key to her house and how you were going to f— her up because you didn’t want people to know about the baby.”
Him: “I didn’t say that. Why would I do that? I had already told the church about the baby.”
Me: “No you hadn’t. You told the church on June 3, after you learned the filthy incriminating tape had been given to the deacons on Memorial Day weekend.”
Him: “That wasn’t me on that tape.” (I’m Catholic so I must confess again: I took my anger with the weak-willed Rodgers out on Ward and verbally assaulted him up one side and down the other, in the language he’s learned to use so well.)
As to that other matter, today’s hearing could bode badly for Ward because if Rodgers is granted a permanent restraining order, the pastor may be sent to jail. He admitted to me that this could happen. You see, Rev. Ward was convicted of felony child abuse on Nov. 8, 2006, for beating his youngest child. (“I just whipped him,” Ward mumbled.)
It must have been a ***l of a whipping because he was convicted of 273(A) of the Penal Code, a Great Bodily Injury or Death to Child charge. (He was also charged with the lesser offense, 273 (D), Infliction of Injury to a Child, which was dismissed after he was convicted of the more serious 273 (A) offense.
He is on probation for that conviction and is assigned to an anger management program. People on probation are not supposed to provoke restraining orders. Also, attorney Anthony Willoughby pointed out something else: People convicted of 273(A) charges are not supposed to have anything to do with children.
Whoa. As everybody knows, Rev. Ward, the felonious child abuser, is the chancellor of his beloved Joel John Scholastic Academy, a school which is draining the dwindling St. Paul membership dry. He is the school’s basketball coach, is said to teach religion there and most certainly spends most of his time at the school, which is located across the street from the church. He drives the school children around in the church bus, for which he reportedly is not licensed to do. So, where’s a probation officer when you need one?
I was told the church deacons have finally undertaken an investigation of Ward’s way with church funds and his moral habits. I tried to reach the group’s chairman, Deacon Roy Jenkins, for more information, but was unable to contact him. I asked a couple of prominent Baptist ministers for their reaction to Ward’s foibles and I received only stunned silence, as neither were willing to touch this man with a 10-foot pole.
By BETTY PLEASANT, Contributing Editor 28.JUN.07
The ongoing saga of the fate of historic St. Paul Baptist Church has taken on a life of its own — not just a life, but a new life, a gestating life, an embryonic life. The church’s controversial pastor, the Rev. Joel Anthony Ward, has impregnated the choir director and the two are due in court Thursday to deal with a restraining order the preacher’s baby mama has had against him since June 6.
Ward, 54, admitted to his church membership on June 3 that Tarshia Rodgers, 37, a third-generation member of St. Paul and director of the church choir, is pregnant with his child. That public admission came a week after Rodgers recorded a series of obscenity-laced threatening conversations with Ward, two days before the Los Angeles Police Department issued Rodgers an emergency protective order against the minister, and three days before Rodgers obtained a temporary restraining order against him in Superior Court.
Thursday’s court hearing will determine whether Rev. Ward will be permanently restrained from coming within 100 yards of Rodgers and her 8-year-old son, and forever barred from “harassing, attacking, striking, threatening, assaulting, hitting, following, stalking, and molesting” them, or contacting them in any way at any place by any means.
Rodgers said she had been having an affair with Ward for eight years, commencing when they were both married to other people. Both are now divorced from the spouses they cheated on. Rodgers said she learned she was pregnant early last month and Ward, already the father of three, did not want another baby and did not want the public to know that Rodgers was going to give him one. Rodgers said Ward wanted her to shut up and have an abortion.
According to the court documents, Ward beat and threatened to kill Rodgers in an attempt to get her to shut up and abort. In the documents, Rodgers said the preacher has “shaken me and pushed me around.” She wrote that he has two guns, and “threatened to use his gun to kill me. He said that the gun is under his bed or in his office and [for me] not to be stupid because he will use it on me.”
Rodgers states that on or about May 20, Ward “punched me in my stomach repeatedly. He also pushed me and shoved me and choked me … in a public place. He threatened to take me up to a hill in a neighborhood and shoot me and then shoot himself. He said ‘I will take you on the hill and kill you and kill myself. Then we’ll really be like Romeo and Juliet.’”
On the Sunday that Ward admitted to his congregation that he and Rodgers are pregnant, Rodgers said the pastor whispered to her in the church: “You have really f—ed up. You have not seen me angry. You don’t know what I’m capable of when I’m angry.” Rodgers said Ward telephoned her so frequently and threatened to kill her and himself that she was moved to tape his threatening calls. She made copies of the tape. She gave one copy to the police, one to the court, one to her attorney, one to the chairman of St. Paul’s deacon board — and one to me. Mercy!
I listened to that tape Tuesday morning and I must say I have never heard such foul language coming out of anybody’s mouth than that spewed by the Rev. Joel Anthony Ward to his paramour. His language is so obscene that it would make the late rapper ODB and Lil’ Kim blush. His berating and debasing conversations with Rodgers are replete with the F word and the colloquial anatomical “p” and “d” words. Makes certain she knows who he is, as he identifies him several times, thusly: “I am Joel Anthony motherf—ing Ward, the best man you’ll know since Jesus,” and “I am Joel Anthony Ward and don’t you forget it.”
He says: “I will motherf— you up. I have the key to your house, I can get in any time I want,” and he screams: “I am going to kick your ass. Not beat it, but kick it and kick it like it’s never been kicked before.” At this point, Rodgers replies: “No you won’t,” to which the preacher screams: “Who’s going to stop me? You? You? Are you going to stop me? Nobody can stop me!” to which Rodgers mumbles something stupid and calls him “daddy.” (I must confess, I am extremely angry with Rodgers’ reaction to Ward on this tape. She was so weak and obsequious that I wanted to kick her *** myself.)
At one point on the tape, the minister of God got carried away with the sound of his own voice and proceeded to describe, in whorehouse terms, the various and sundry sex acts the pair had performed and accused Rodgers of letting some other man put his (street term deleted) in her (street term deleted). Rodgers denied this and reminded Ward of his current affair with another woman, to which the preacher replied: “I’m f—ing two women; three, if I count you.”
What is particularly freaky about this tape is that at the conclusion of a obscene tirade, Rev. Ward bursts into song and begins belting out a hymn!!
I called Rev. Ward Tuesday to talk about his relationship with Rodgers, the restraining order, his felony child abuse conviction (which we’ll discuss shortly) and about the tape. He said his lawyer told him not to talk about anything. I said: “Well, you just listen. I’ll talk. I have a copy of the tape.” After I said that, he wouldn’t shut up. He immediately and agitatedly responded: “That was a private conversation between me and someone I was close to. She did not have my permission to make that tape. That is an illegal tape.” In the next breath, he denied that it was he on the tape. “It wasn’t me,” he insisted.
“You have a real foul mouth on you, preacher. Did they teach you that in the seminary?” I asked. “I was provoked. You didn’t hear what she was saying to me,” he responded.
Me: “I heard every word the two of you said, including your threats to kick her ass and your having the key to her house and how you were going to f— her up because you didn’t want people to know about the baby.”
Him: “I didn’t say that. Why would I do that? I had already told the church about the baby.”
Me: “No you hadn’t. You told the church on June 3, after you learned the filthy incriminating tape had been given to the deacons on Memorial Day weekend.”
Him: “That wasn’t me on that tape.” (I’m Catholic so I must confess again: I took my anger with the weak-willed Rodgers out on Ward and verbally assaulted him up one side and down the other, in the language he’s learned to use so well.)
As to that other matter, today’s hearing could bode badly for Ward because if Rodgers is granted a permanent restraining order, the pastor may be sent to jail. He admitted to me that this could happen. You see, Rev. Ward was convicted of felony child abuse on Nov. 8, 2006, for beating his youngest child. (“I just whipped him,” Ward mumbled.)
It must have been a ***l of a whipping because he was convicted of 273(A) of the Penal Code, a Great Bodily Injury or Death to Child charge. (He was also charged with the lesser offense, 273 (D), Infliction of Injury to a Child, which was dismissed after he was convicted of the more serious 273 (A) offense.
He is on probation for that conviction and is assigned to an anger management program. People on probation are not supposed to provoke restraining orders. Also, attorney Anthony Willoughby pointed out something else: People convicted of 273(A) charges are not supposed to have anything to do with children.
Whoa. As everybody knows, Rev. Ward, the felonious child abuser, is the chancellor of his beloved Joel John Scholastic Academy, a school which is draining the dwindling St. Paul membership dry. He is the school’s basketball coach, is said to teach religion there and most certainly spends most of his time at the school, which is located across the street from the church. He drives the school children around in the church bus, for which he reportedly is not licensed to do. So, where’s a probation officer when you need one?
I was told the church deacons have finally undertaken an investigation of Ward’s way with church funds and his moral habits. I tried to reach the group’s chairman, Deacon Roy Jenkins, for more information, but was unable to contact him. I asked a couple of prominent Baptist ministers for their reaction to Ward’s foibles and I received only stunned silence, as neither were willing to touch this man with a 10-foot pole.
