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Amish Victims of Investment Fraud Want To Administer Remaining Assets Instead of Bankruptcy Court

By Howard M. Friedman

Yesterday's Columbus (OH) Dispatch reports that a member of central Ohio's Amish community, Monroe Beachy, has lost over half of the $33 million that 2,700 members of the Amish and Mennonite Church have given him to invest over the last 25 years, apparently in a fraudulent investment scheme.  Beachy has now filed for bankruptcy, but members of the Amish community have asked the court to dismiss the case and allow them to handle the matter internally within the Amish community-- including distribution of the $16.4 million in assets that the U.S. Trustee has recovered. They say that use of civil courts is forbidden by the Bible, and want to distribute the funds  based on "Christian principles of love and care for the poor and needy.?  Hundreds of investors have written the bankruptcy judge saying: "My participation as a creditor is abhorrent to deeply held spiritual principles on which my family and I have built our lives."  The U.S. Trustee opposes turning the case over to the Amish and says that religious beliefs are not a basis for dismissing the case.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on December 13, 2010 (boomark / email).