Pastor Ted Haggard's appeal, molester link raise more questions *

Fallen pastor solicits donations through group run by twice-convicted
sex offender

By Alan Gathright And Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News
August 28, 2007

Pastor Ted Haggard's dream of ministering to fellow "broken people" at a
Phoenix halfway house has foundered amid revelations that he urged
donations to support his family be sent to a Monument group run by a
twice-convicted sex offender.

"He's not going to be moving into the Phoenix Dream Center," said Mike
Ware, the head of a four-member panel of ministers overseeing the fallen
preacher's spiritual restoration.

Ware, a senior pastor at Westminster's Victory Church, spoke by phone
before he met with Haggard in Phoenix this afternoon to investigate his
fund-raising effort that Ware called "premature."

Ware stressed that he didn't want to prejudge the meeting; a second
overseer, Pastor Tim Ralph of New Covenant Fellowship in Larkspur will
attend the meeting, while two other panel members will join via
teleconference.

"I can't really make any comment on that until after I've investigated
... and talked with the other overseers," Ware said.

A minister for the church that runs the Phoenix Dream Center, said
Haggard was mistaken when he stated in a fundraising e-mail that he and
his family were moving into the halfway house where he and his wife
would minister to residents, including the homeless, recovering addicts,
prostitutes, ex-cons and other "broken people."

"I identify," Haggard wrote of the center's troubled clientele, in the
fundraising e-mail he sent last week to KRDO-TV in Colorado Springs.

"That is not part of his restoration plan. I think he visited the Dream
Center, saw it was a good place for people to rehab and got excited,"
Leo Godzich, minister at First Assembly church, told the Associated
Press Monday.

First Assembly Pastor Tommy Barnett founded the Dream Center and is a
mentor to Haggard during his spiritual recovery.

The revelation that Haggard asked supporters to give him tax-deductible
donations via a nonprofit run by Paul Gerard Huberty, a registered sex
offender from Monument, is just the latest twist in the bizarre saga of
the fallen preacher.

Haggard, 50, last year quit as president of the National Association of
Evangelicals and was fired as pastor of a Colorado Springs megachurch
after he admitted to purchasing drugs and unspecified "sexual
immorality" involving a male prostitute.

Haggard, who has moved with his family to Phoenix, could not be reached
for comment Monday.

'Sad and embarrassing'

Haggard was dismissed from New Life Church in November after a former
Denver gay escort publicly alleged that the powerful preacher had paid
him for sex over a three-year period and sometimes took methamphetamine
during the encounters.

Haggard admitted paying Mike Jones for a massage and for meth but denied
having sex with Jones or taking the drug.

In February, one of Haggard's spiritual advisers said the ousted founder
of New Life Church emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling
convinced "he is completely heterosexual" and committed to his marriage.

In the fundraising pitch, Haggard told KRDO "we are looking for people
who will help us monthly for two years" while he and his wife seek
counseling degrees at the University of Phoenix.

"If any supporters need a tax deduction for their gift, they can mail it
to Families With a Mission at P.O. Box 63125, Colorado Springs, CO
80962," Haggard added.

Haggard didn't note in the solicitation that he was paid one year's
salary of $138,000 in a severance package by New Life's board and still
owns a Colorado Springs home valued at $715,000, according to the El
Paso County Assessor's Office.

Haggard's 2006 salary was reported as $115,000 plus a $85,000 bonus. He
also collects royalties on his book titles, although it was unknown how
much he receives from that. His books were pulled from the New Life
Church's bookstore when the scandal broke.

Jones said Haggard's plea for financial help was "sad and embarrassing."

"When I exposed Ted Haggard, I exposed myself," he said. "I lost
everything. My life is still in boxes and I haven't asked my best friend
for help. Here's a man who left with hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The ultimate word is greed. For all the people who came down on me for
ruining a man's life, this is another example of what this man is like.
He would stoop to anything regarding money."

Tie to sex offender

On Friday, a Seattle alternative newspaper, The Stranger, reported
online that Families with a Mission was registered by Huberty as a
nonprofit corporation with the Colorado Secretary of State's Office.

Huberty, who originally incorporated the nonprofit in Hawaii in 2001,
was listed as president of Families with a Mission in Colorado
incorporation papers.

Huberty was convicted of attempted sexual assault in Hawaii in January
2004 and sentenced to 12 months in jail with six months suspended.

He also received five years of probation and is registered in Hawaii as
sex offender who has committed crimes against a minor. Because of the
Hawaii conviction, he is also registered in El Paso County.

The Hawaiian state sex offender registry lists Huberty's Monument home
address — which also is the mailing address for Families with a Mission.

Calls to Huberty's home — where the voice mail has a man named "Paul"
saying to leave a message and "God bless you" — were not returned Monday.

While serving with the U.S. Air Force in Germany in 1996, then-Lt. Col.
Paul G. Huberty was convicted of sodomy, indecent acts, and adultery
involving a 17-year girl who accompanied Huberty to Europe as his "legal
ward," according to military court records.

In the same trial, the 18-year Army veteran also was convicted of
"dishonorably fondling his genitals" during an incident involving two
Dutch women at a public swimming pool in the Netherlands.

Huberty, who was a married father of three at the time, was dismissed
from the military and sentenced to six months confinement, court records
show.