Another ONAC sibling church chimes in on the ONAC-Pappas situation
For those of you whom haven't heard about our recent situation history between the whole of Oklevueha Native American Church and a California licensed attorney by the name of Matthew Pappas, of coarse you're highly encouraged to check around about it for yourself, but in the meantime we are Honored to bring to you the voice from one of our sibling independent churches by the name of "Inner Light Oklevueha Native American Church" whom publicly posted on June 28th, 2016 the following statement in regard to the recent victimization of Oklevueha Native American Church as a whole and summarizes it from among the best perspective as an aware independent Oklevueha Native American church :
"Needed Change in Legal Representation
It seems that, whenever an organization begins to grow and succeed, there are people within and without that try to take advantage of that for their own benefit. Our Founders and those who work with them live simply and have sacrificed much including going through many legal processes, arrests, etc. in order to defend and protect your freedoms.
Last year, a brilliant attorney in California, named Matthew Pappas, was hired to help defend our constitutional freedom of religious rights for all members in good standing with ONAC. Mr. Pappas' responsibilities included legal representation defending ONAC members from the inhumane illegal acts, unlawful prosecutions, discriminatory practices and unethical wrongs perpetrated against ONAC branches and its members by disrespectful drug and law enforcement agencies, corrupt judges and politically motivated district attorneys. Matt Pappas helped a little in a few cases, but in many cases dropped the ball for some ONAC members leaving them at the mercies of a corrupt judicial system where they had to fend for themselves.
Unfortunately, Mr. Pappas seized upon the trust and support he received from his own legal staff as well as James and Linda Mooney and other key ONAC branch leaders, such as Pete Tran, Sergio Sandoval, Patrick McNeal, Kenny Hsu and Joy Graves. He blatantly lied to all of them telling them that he was now the head of ONAC and that everyone would be taking orders from him, including James Mooney, the original founder of ONAC. Then he tried to defraud the church and began embezzling funds that should have gone into the ONAC bank account. He even created a stamp of James Mooney's signature, so that the paper work he created appeared to be authentic.
When some of his unlawful acts were discovered a few weeks ago, Matthew Pappas was terminated as legal counsel for ONAC by its Board of Elders. This occurred after he had made many verbal and written false accusations and misleading statements against James Mooney and had written a defamatory letter alleging many untrue statements about ONAC's founder. Recently, Joy Graves revealed a long list of hideous crimes being committed by Mr. Pappas against ONAC and its members. Joy was the wonderful person who gave a lot of information that exposed the lies that Matthew Pappas had been telling ONAC's key leaders, members and others.
For these and other reasons, Matthew Pappas will likely soon be losing his license to practice law in California because of his crimes. We have turned the information needed over to the proper authorities in California so that Mr. Pappas can have some just consequences for his illegal acts. A new legal firm whose attorneys are known for their character and integrity was immediately retained by ONAC's Board of Elders to replace Mr. Pappas.
Our membership continues to grow and the number of branches has doubled within the last year. We will continue to defend your rights to live your spirituality and have access to your ceremonies. sacraments and medicines."
ONAC KM believe that the internal problems revealed to us as a result of all this victimization does have valuable wisdom to be learned from "The wolf Pappas whose so easily slid past us". Graves, who was assigned to handle the damage and clean-up from the ONAC-Pappas scandal by the mother church says "Locating and then connecting with the victims left behind from this is but the beginning of the surface as far as the damage control assessment thus far we can foresee needing to be done, I mean, we still don"t Know how many victims their are or to what magnitude "Team Pappas" have elevated their "Rubber Church" scam to but too, All ONAC spiritual leaders have much wisdom to be learned from this on many levels and says that among her goals for ONAC will be better guarded in the future against exploitation like this once all of this is said and done."
Please stay tuned for future updates about this and other ONAC encompassing news and events, and again we Thank You for your continued support!
