In what would be the makings of a stellar episode of "The World’s Stupidest Criminals" - were it not such a sickening crime - Kevin Thompson, the Unification Church minister who was sentenced last week for poaching thousands of protected baby leopard sharks, told his congregation details of the crime and then posted the sermon on the church’s website.
In the sermon, Thompson implicated his "messiah" Sun Myung Moon in the crime saying Moon wanted to expand the operation and admitted the funds were used to support church activities.
Join me on the flop for links to audio of the sermon and a tad of information on Moon's history of flaunting the law.
For the details of the shark poaching case from before Thompson's guilty plea go here.
Here's an excerpt from Robert Gammon's East Bay Express' Jan. 31, 2007 report
The Man vs. Moon
As a local Moonie preacher is sentenced, evidence implicates the church's supreme leader in a shark-poaching scheme.
Federal prosecutors scored a coup last week when Reverend Kevin Thompson, Bay Area leader for the Unification Church — aka the Moonies — was sentenced to one year behind bars for running the world's largest baby-leopard-shark poaching ring. But previously undisclosed evidence suggests that the conservative newspaper publisher and church supreme leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon both knew of and encouraged Thompson's illegal operation. ...
[Investigator] Torres connected Thompson directly to True World [Moon business operation] when he discovered the San Leandro church kept three of its fishing boats inside the sushi distributor's gated parking lot. He also learned that Thompson kept live baby sharks in tanks inside a large shed on the True World property.
None of this circumstantial evidence, most of which Torres detailed in federal court records, established a direct link between Thompson's sharks and the King of the Ocean [Moon]. But the pastor voluntarily made that link himself. In a 2003 sermon captured on audiotape, Thompson said he personally informed the True Father about the shark enterprise. "When I had the chance to tell our founder Reverend Moon about it ... he told me, you know, 'You need twenty boats out there fishing!'" he boasted. "He had this big plan drawn out, you know." Thompson, a Brit who speaks with a Scottish accent, also said he had to convince the excited Moon not to expand the operation, apparently out of fear that it would attract notice. ...
Clearly, the Thompson audio is damning, and it likely played a role in getting the local churchman a stiff sentence for actions that, no matter how creepy, essentially boil down to poaching. But it's unclear whether the feds will use the audiotape to hook the biggest fish of all. We may find out soon: The US Attorney's Office has slated a major press conference on the shark-ring case for February 12.
Here is a transcript of a bit of the sermon - but I suggest you listen to the clip available in this East Bay Express blogpost to get the full feel for it. It's disgusting.
Quoting Thompson's 2003 sermon to his congregation about the shark poaching operation:
It didn't make lots and lots of money. It made enough to keep Ocean Church's activities going. Of course, when I had the chance to tell our founder Reverend Moon about it and I've told you before, 'do not get him excited; anything can happen.' He told me you know, 'you need twenty boats out there fishing!' He had this big plan drawn out you know; and (Thompson speaking to Moon) 'No, no, no, you can't do that.' But he doesn't like the idea you can't do anything. So anyway, so for the last thirteen years or so we've, you know, done this little business; it's only a few months a year when babies are born.
Breaking the law is not new to Moon who, as most of you know, served 13 months for tax fraud in the 80s. Also, you can read details here about the Unification Church being found responsible for swindling vast sums of money from the Japanese, targeting widows.
The 1970s congressional investigation known as the Fraser Committee stated this about how Moon's organization operates:
According to the subcommittee, "To achieve his theocracy, Moon has mapped out strategies for gaining control and influence over economic, political, cultural, academic, media, and religious institutions....
The subcommittee further states that "Moon based his movement on a church because it provides the greatest opportunity for reaching his goals. A UC publication discussed a change in the American organization's name from 'United Family" to "Unification Church," noting that "The reason for the change is that we must ultimately have our effect on the institutions of society." ...
"The UC and numerous other religious and secular organizations headed by Sun Myung Moon constitute essentially one international organization."
"The Moon Organization attempts to achieve goals outlined by Sun Myung Moon, who has substantial control over the economic, political, and spiritual activities undertaken by the organization in pursuit of those goals."
"Although many of the goals and activities of the Moon Organization were legitimate and lawful, there was evidence that it had systematically violated U.S. tax, immigration, banking, currency, and Foreign Agents Registration Act laws, as well as State and local laws relating to charity fraud, and that these violations were related to the organization's overall goals of gaining temporal power."
Staff director for the Fraser committee, Robert Boettcher, in his book Gifts of Deceit - Sun Myung Moon, Tongsun Park and the Korean Scandal (1980) pointed to how Moon gamed our system.
There is a Moonie explanation for everything.
Lying. One of the central tenets of the faith is the doctrine of Heavenly Deception. Good must deceive evil. The non-Moon world is evil. It must be lied to so it can help Moon take over. Then it can become good under Moon's control. In the Bible, Jacob lied to Isaac. God rewarded Jacob by making him the father of the nation of Israel. Closer to home, you lie to your children about Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, don't you?
......
The non-Moon world, being of Satan, lives under the laws of Cain. Constantly, they get in Moon's way. One law however is very useful. It makes it possible to try to get around all the others. The First Amendment to the constitution guarantees freedom of religion. As long as Moon says everything the cult does is religious, he can claim the protection of the First Amendment.
The advantages of using the first Amendment were seen early. Before Moon moved to the United States in 1971, he and his small band of followers realized the operation would have the most flexibility if it was called a church. Businesses, political activities, and tax exempt status could be protected. Moon was dubbed "Reverend" in 1969. In 1970 the name "United Family" was changed to "Unification Church." Organization and goals stayed the same. Only the name was changed, for its "effect on the institutions of society." A cult publication explained, "The name implies respectability and stability."
Since Moon's invasion of America began, he has marched steadily behind the First Amendment shield. Calling himself "Reverend" and his operation a church early enough, Moon put the burden of proof on the non-Moon world. His beliefs are fully protected by the First Amendment. He insists his actions are, too. His beliefs cover everything. No matter what the cult does, therefore, it is claimed to be an exercise of religious belief.
In the non-Moon world, Fraser conducts an investigation. He wants to find out if the Moon organization's political and business activities are part of the Korean influence campaign. At first, he has only allegations that the Moonies acted as unregistered agents of a foreign intelligence service, the KCIA. The Moonies can believe in God as they choose, but they ought not violate the law in the process, he thinks. He is amazed at what he finds: evidence that the Moon organization has violated laws on banking, immigration, taxes, currency control, charity fraud, arms export control, and foreign agents registration.
To the moonies, everything Fraser did from start to finish violated their freedom of religion. Since they claim everything they do is religious, Fraser had no right to question what they do. The cult's published comment on the Fraser Report says it well: "Its objections to the activities of the followers of Rev. Moon are fundamentally objections to their religious beliefs."
Moon apparently thinks his "religious beliefs" are special license to break laws. The new Messiah is above the laws of Cain. Whatever contempt Moon has for the laws of the United States, he sees fit to hide behind the First Amendment to the Constitution. That raises questions for the non-Moon world about the meaning of freedom of religion: ....[Boettcher goes on to outline lawbreaking and political activity the investigation found Moon tried to hide behind the cry of "religion"...]
Smuggling cash into the USA:
From Robert Parry’s review of Moon’s x daughter in law, Nansook Hong's book:
According to Nansook Hong, much of the money went into family safes to be doled out later to fund Moon's American businesses, his political operations and his family's luxuries.
Nansook Hong described one incident in 1992 when she personally participated in smuggling cash past U.S. Customs at the instructions of Rev. Moon's wife, Hak Ja Han Moon. Hong recounted numerous other cases in which the Moons received cash from church members who brought money from overseas and delivered it in bags. ...
"The Unification Church was a cash operation," Nansook Hong wrote. "I watched Japanese church leaders arrive at regular intervals at East Garden [the Moon compound north of New York City] with paper bags full of money, which the Reverend Moon would either pocket or distribute to the heads of various church-owned business enterprises at his breakfast table. ...
"I was given $20,000 in two packs of crisp new bills," Hong remembered. "I hid them beneath the tray in my makeup case. ... I knew that smuggling was illegal, but I believed the followers of Sun Myung Moon answered to higher laws."...
Nansook Hong wrote that Moon "demonstrated contempt for U.S. law every time he accepted a paper bag full of untraceable, undeclared cash collected from true believers."
From Moonstruck, A Memoir of My Life in a Cult" by Allen Tate Wood - member and leader in the movement's early years in the USA.
Moon’s system was simply one of the many ends justify the means. Lying and stealing were okay as long as you were doing it for the sake of good.
Wood also described Moon thusly:
"Asia's revenge for all those protestant missionaries we unloaded over there in the nineteenth century, while we were checking out the raw materials. He's kind of the bastard son of monopoly capitalism and a fierce Protestant fundamentalism."
More Moon lawbreaking
Kodiak, Alaska, Fish-Processing Plant Hauls In Big Fine
Anchorage Daily News/June 6, 2001
A Kodiak fish-processing company pleaded guilty Friday to a federal felony charge of illegally underreporting the amount of pollock purchased from a fishing boat.
International Seafoods of Alaska Inc., whose plant is one of the biggest in the commercial fishing hub of Kodiak, was fined $150,000 and put on probation for five years under a plea agreement with prosecutors. ...
The woman checking weights in the plant "basically went along with this but then she had enough" and contacted NMFS officials, Bottini said. The International plant is part of the global business holdings of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Joachim Becker, corporate secretary with the International's Kodiak plant, was in the courtroom Friday and entered the plea on behalf of the company's board of directors. ...
Gary Gailbreath, a NMFS enforcement agent in Anchorage, disputed the notion that International didn't stand to gain. Fish plants depend on deliveries from fishermen, and a boat captain who knows his catch is overweight might be inclined to take his fish to a plant that will fudge the numbers, he said. "It really was giving them a competitive advantage," Gailbreath said of International. ...
Al Burch, a longtime Kodiak fishermen and head of a trade association of trawlers, said many people in Kodiak will applaud the criminal case.
"The honest boats are going to really welcome it," he said. "And the plants, too."
Rev. Moon charged with overfishing
The Associated Press / August 30, 2000
Kodiak, Alaska (AP) - The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, head of the Unification Church, was charged along with his wife with catching too many fish during a visit to Alaska.
Moon pulled in 10 coho salmon - twice the legal limit - and his wife, Hak Ja Han, 47, took six, said Trooper Sgt. Joanna Roop, a state wildlife enforcement officer. Husband and wife face fines of $250 each.
Watch this panel discussion with three former editors of Moon's media as they outline and make the case for something that was proposed by the Fraser Committee and should have happened long ago...that is, that Moon's organization including his media holdings should be made to register under the Foreign Agents Registrations Act. There is little doubt they meet the requirements but with their allies and beneficiaries in the Republican Party and complacent and naive Democrats in charge it never happened.
EDIT: Former member Ron Paquette said in the 2000 BBC documentary Emperor of the Universe:
Not paying your taxes...withholding payroll taxes, paying people under the table cash so you didn't have to pay the government money, that saved Father money, so therefore it was OK. It was doing God's will because anything that supported Moon or supported the agenda was doing God's will.
also, from the same documentary quoting Nansook Hong on Moon's tax case:
"We prayed on the Holy Rock every morning... ...a lot of us were there all night praying for Moon. ... But, we all knew that it was tax evasion."