Congregation in Beach seeks unity as ex-pastor faces trial

VIRGINIA BEACH

On a recent Sunday, Mark Tarkington stood in a red-carpeted sanctuary, handing out hymnals as he assessed the past year at Hilltop Community Church.

"There's a lot of positives and a lot of miracles here," he said. "Things are back to normal. People are starting to come back."

The returnees include Tarkington, a highway worker who left Hilltop last year in the midst of a widening schism over its minister, the Rev. Kenneth L. Montgomery.

"Something didn't feel right to me when the pastor was preaching," Tarkington said. He sensed "something evil" at Hilltop.

A grand jury's indictment of Montgomery in September was more precise, if less supernatural.

Montgomery, 48, is set to go to trial Tuesday in Virginia Beach Circuit Court, charged with embezzling more than $100,000 from the church and defrauding its insurance company.

Montgomery, a former painting contractor who had been convicted of seven felonies, could not be reached for comment. Current and former members say he has never admitted wrongdoing.

Throughout the fall, winter and spring of last year, Montgomery's advocates and critics battled in what became like a soap opera replete with private detectives, character assassination, a lock-out of dissidents by church elders and accusations of an extramarital affair.

"It turned into a nightmare, and all we wanted to do is have church," said Dan Evans, a former backer of Montgomery who has since left Hilltop.

Ultimately, allegations of financial misconduct by Montgomery convinced a Virginia Beach judge to order him to repay Hilltop more than $131,000 in a civil case last June.

The congregation in the low, white-brick church at 929 First Colonial Road has been healing ever since.

"There are so many wonderful things happening here," said Linda Bass, a member who returned.

On a Sunday morning, she sat among 60 worshippers, who included senior citizens and parents with teens, in pews facing a worship platform backed by a baptismal tank.

Hilltop now has an elected governing board and constitution, a revived Sunday nursery and a Thursday Bible study. A wing of a former school is being converted into a shelter for battered women.

Even the hymnals symbolize a change; under Montgomery, hymnals were banished.

Hilltop also has a new minister, the Rev. Norm Holcomb, who volunteered to help last fall after learning about Hilltop's troubles from a local news report.

The plain-spoken, retired chaplain has brought a calming sense of order and unity to a roiled congregation.

"I said one Sunday morning, 'I've never been to a place where everybody was angry at somebody,' " Holcomb recalled. The 63-year-old former Navy captain ordered congregants to shake each other's hands.

"It's pretty hard to stay mad," he said, "when someone walks over and says, 'Peace of the Lord be with you.' "

 

On this Sunday, the returned congregants included Sue Arellano, a retired DuPont worker who joined Hilltop in 1999. "Every time I walk in that sanctuary, I feel God's presence," she said.

Old-timers say Hilltop was founded in the 1960s as a Southern Baptist congregation. Over time, it became nondenominational and went through several name changes and pastors. Attendance seesawed.

Montgomery first cycled through around 2002 as a musician. Thick at the waist and 5 feet 10 inches tall, the future pastor had a singing voice both fans and critics call dazzling. He performed with his wife in Praise 3, a Christian band, though he made a living as a commercial painter.

After a dispute, Montgomery left and helped lead a storefront church about a mile away.

Hilltop's membership was sinking, so congregants held a church meeting that chose new trustees. Arellano was named treasurer. In line with state law, the trustees were officially confirmed by a circuit court judge.

Soon after, the church's minister retired and Montgomery returned, along with followers from the storefront church. Without a vote by members, he took over as Hilltop's pastor.

Under Montgomery, Hilltop was run as a "New Testament" church, with unelected governing elders and no bylaws or constitution, according to court documents.

Members say they were unaware Montgomery had been convicted in Virginia Beach in 1994 of at least seven felonies.

Montgomery's crimes included embezzling equipment from his former employer, a painting contractor, and stealing items including a .45-caliber pistol, payroll checks and guitars, court records show.

Montgomery pleaded guilty and received a 10-year sentence, suspended pending good behavior. He also had to repay five victims $18,815.

Arellano thought Montgomery was wonderful - a talented, generous preacher who served without drawing a salary.

But as treasurer, Arellano also had a complaint: Montgomery repeatedly had her sign blank church checks but did not provide receipts.

"I'd beg with the man, plead with the man: 'I need receipts,' " Arellano said. "He said, 'They're home on my dresser, or out in my truck.' "

When Montgomery finally gave her two receipts, they were generic forms bearing the handwritten name of a paint store. The store manager told her the receipts were bogus, Arellano said

Arellano shared her concerns with some Hilltop elders - and was quickly fired as treasurer by Montgomery via e-mail in September 2006. She also was banned from the church, she said

Stunned by her dismissal, Arellano turned to church trustees for help.

"We knew something was wrong," she said. The trustees and Robert Foley, a member, contacted Virginia Beach lawyer William Lascara.

On Lascara's advice, several trustees called a churchwide meeting for Oct. 8, 2006. They planned to accuse Montgomery of fiscal shenanigans and expose his criminal past, then vote him out and adopt a constitution.

It never happened.

Elders loyal to Montgomery canceled the gathering and blocked the trustees from the church on Oct. 8.

 

Dan Evans, a general contractor, said he and other elders disbelieved Arellano and questioned why she aired her complaints about Montgomery only after being fired.

Montgomery, in contrast, seemed disarmingly candid. "He had this great testimony about going to prison and having God completely deliver him from cocaine addiction," Evans recalled.

According to minutes from an Oct. 10, 2006, meeting, the elders decided Montgomery's criminal record "has been forgiven by God" and was of no concern.

When questioned about complaints that he had misused checks, Montgomery "denied everything, had answers for everything," Evans said. "Unfortunately, a lot of them were lies. But we didn't know that at the time."

The elders regarded Montgomery's critics as vicious insurgents who "wanted to go back to being a little Baptist church," Evans said.

On Oct. 11, the trustees sued Montgomery, and later added the elders as defendants.

What gave some of the congregation hope they could curb the pastor's control on the church was Lascara's legal argument that churches are organized in two ways: hierarchies that give overall authority to a central figure, such as a bishop; or congregational churches in which members hold decision-making power.

Hilltop was the second type.

The suit asked a Virginia Beach court to name a special commissioner to convene a congregational meeting during which Hilltop members could vote on a constitution and new leaders.

Evans thought churches were shielded from court intervention by the constitution and legal separation of church and state.

He was wrong.

After considering dueling legal briefs filed by Lascara and a lawyer for Montgomery, Circuit Court Judge Edward W. Hanson Jr. appointed a special commissioner "to protect the rights of all members of Hilltop Community Church."

Hanson assigned commissioner William A. Cox III two tasks: Discern the truth about the church's finances and hold a congregational meeting at Hilltop. Both were to be completed before the case was tried in June 2007.

Last April, Lascara questioned Montgomery for hours during a legal deposition.

Montgomery said he was a 1977 Kempsville High School graduate and earned a bachelor's in divinity degree from Valley Forge University in 1982. (A Web search did not turn up a Valley Forge University, but found a Valley Forge Christian College, in Phoenixville, Pa., with a satellite location in Woodbridge.) He worked for E.M. Raines - the company he embezzled from - for about 13 years. He acknowledged his felony convictions.

He also said he helped minister at Rock Church, Open Door Chapel and Lighthouse Fellowship in Virginia Beach.

But when grilled about why check after check, payable to Ken Montgomery, was drawn on Hilltop's account he repeatedly said he could not remember.

"Usually I got a check, cashed the check, bought what I needed and brought the receipts back to Sue," said Montgomery, who said he provided "hundreds" of receipts.

He denied submitting the paint receipt that raised Arellano's suspicions. The deposition resumed the next day, but it ended when Montgomery's attorney said the pastor felt sick and was leaving to see a doctor.

Lascara's private investigators followed him.

"They found him 20 minutes later at the Donkey Dawgs, having lunch with his wife, and not at the doctor's," Lascara said.

 

At a May 7, 2007, hearing at Cox's office, David Timms, an accounting expert hired by the plaintiffs, described his audit of Hilltop's finances and Montgomery's personal bank account.

Timms said Montgomery had received 25 church checks from August 2004 through November 2006.

"He deposited $81,145.80 and he cashed $44,577.62," said Timms, a CPA who had scrutinized the pastor's personal checking.

"There was nothing spent on behalf of the church," Timms said.

Montgomery had clearly used church money at least three times to stave off foreclosure of his home mortgage - something Montgomery had denied during his deposition, Timms said.

Montgomery also pocketed at least $25,000 that an insurer had paid Hilltop for a theft claim after a reported break-in at the church, Timms said.

As for the paint receipts Montgomery provided to Arellano, "The invoices were fabricated," Timms said.

Montgomery was not at the hearing. He did not attend Cox's meeting on May 14 during which the feuding sides agreed to a June 3 congregational vote on competing constitution proposals and leadership slates.

Cox's financial report in late May was damning. "It is clear and uncontroverted" that Montgomery siphoned $125,723 from the church for personal use, he wrote. "It is clear that on three occasions, he furnished false receipts."

Montgomery also told Hilltop's insurer that church equipment was stolen, then pocketed the reimbursement, telling the church that the equipment had been his, Cox said in his report. Though the evidence of financial wrongdoing didn't budge several elders' support for Montgomery, a woman's video deposition finally cracked Evans' loyalty.

The woman - a divorcee with children - had told church leaders previously that Montgomery had been a "perfect gentleman" during their friendship.

On tape, under a lawyer's questioning, in sworn testimony, she had a different story.

"Has Ken Montgomery ever asked you to have a physical relationship with him?" a lawyer asked. "Has he ever asked you?"

"Yes," the women replied.

"He has asked you to have a sexual or physical relationship with him, correct?" the lawyer said.

"Yes," she said, adding that Montgomery said he'd leave his wife.

It left Evans outraged: He confronted Montgomery the evening before the congregational vote.

"I went to him that night and said, 'You're out. You're done - you lied to us,' " Evans recalled. Montgomery neither denied nor admitted the affair, he said.

But Montgomery was a no-show the next day when Hilltop members met to vote. Someone said he had resigned as pastor.

The 78 members present voted 2-1 for the dissidents' leadership slate and proposed constitution.

Montgomery did not attend the trial on June 11. Judge Hanson adopted Cox's findings. He ordered Montgomery to repay Hilltop $131,714.

Since then, most of Montgomery's supporters at Hilltop stopped attending.

Holcomb is hopeful Hilltop will grow stronger. "We've got more potential than you can shake a stick at," he said before the service one Sunday morning. He tells members, "Hang on, and in a couple years we'll be spiritual millionaires."

But closure may only come with Montgomery's trial.

Evans, who still calls the lawsuit un-Christian, will not be there, though he said he was "suckered" by Montgomery. "He's probably going to prison."

That's a prospect Bertha Borjes looks forward to. "He sinned against the Lord Jesus Christ, and I don't think there's any vindication for that," said Borjes, one of the trustees who sued Montgomery.

Arellano said she's trying to forget the feud. "I was just so thankful God allowed us back in our church," she said.

Tarkington, too, doesn't like to talk about the former pastor, who baptized him into Christianity.

But his T-shirt proclaimed: "Forgiveness and Redemption: This offer expires when you do."

Steven G. Vegh, (757) 446-2417, steven.vegh@pilotonline.com