Pastor Henry Lyons Filed Bankruptcy This Summer to Avoid Church Foreclosure
The scandalized Rev. Henry Lyons, who rocked a national African-American Baptist organization in the late 1990s, is now facing the possibility of losing his Tampa church.
New Salem Missionary Baptist Church of Tampa filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July to try and fend off foreclosure by Fifth Third Bank. The bank says it loaned the church $1.1 million in 2007 but that New Salem missed payments and has defaulted.
The bankruptcy filing appears to have stopped the bank from taking back any properties for now.
Lyons had run the National Baptist Convention USA for five years in the 1990s but was forced out in disgrace amid ugly allegations that he had stolen from the convention and had a marital affair. He wrongly spent church money to finance a lavish lifestyle that included a $700,000 waterfront home and a Rolls-Royce.
He eventually spent nearly five years in prison and was released in 2003.
What caused the issue to be exasperated was when the church took out a $1.1 million loan from Fifth Third Bank five years ago, at least in part to help it purchase land for a new church on Sligh Avenue near Interstate 4.
New Salem began missing payments and defaulted on the loan in 2009 and the bank filed a foreclosure lawsuit in August 2010 against the church.
In bankruptcy documents, Fifth Third Bank claims the church shuffled the ownership of some of the mortgaged properties. It appears the church no longer owns several of the properties it took out the mortgage upon, the bank says.
