Fred Pack had every reason to think the world of Stanley. A highway construction manager, Pack was a parishioner in the Beverly Hills Tabernacle, the church where Stanley's father preached, and it was upon the Rev. Robert Stanley's enthusiastic recommendation that he believed the junior Stanley's promise to double Pack's investment inside of three years. Shortly after giving Stanley $133,000 to invest for his retirement, Pack's wife was diagnosed with liver cancer and required costly treatment.
Pack says he asked Stanley for his money back, but instead got a runaround. At first Stanley said he couldn't pay him because of a bounced check, then it was a long story about his life being in danger because of dealings with some questionable people living in Florida. Pack eventually had what he called a "gentlemen's discussion" with Stanley; essentially, Pack says, he demanded that Stanley "pay up or else." He finally got most of his money back, but the episode left him with a strong impression.
"He was the most convincing liar you ever met in your life," recalls Pack, one of the few victims to be repaid. "He was so convincing when he told you something that I don't think it registered with him what he was saying."
Tiny Baker, still trying to recover her investment in the scheme, was a more typical victim. Baker says she invested just over $129,000 after J.C. Osgood, Stanley's grandfather and the founder of the Beverly Hills Tabernacle, recommended his grandson's investment services. As a preacher, the owner of a land-surveying business and the holder of valuable mineral rights in the area, Osgood was widely regarded as a town elder. His seal of approval was all Baker needed to convince her of the wisdom of investing money with Stanley, a fellow parishioner who played piano during Sunday services.
But later, when Baker needed some money for heart surgery, Baker couldn't even get a call through to Stanley. According to her attorney, Baker hasn't received a dime from Stanley. "David Stanley ruined my life and he ruined my childrens' lives," Baker says. In all, prosecutors allege, residents from Wise County and nearby Sullivan County in Tennessee lost more than $1.25 million in Stanley's investment scheme.
In 1989, when Stanley pleaded guilty, he knew, he says now, that the insurance company for the securities firm where he had been working would repay his victims the more than $1 million they had lost. Stanley failed to take into account, however, that one-third of the payout would go to an attorney representing Stanley's victims, and Stanley would be left to repay the remainder.
The prospect of living in poverty while paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in restitution - only to then spend eight years in prison - was unappealing. In 1996, with only a fraction of his restitution paid, Stanley fled.
Among the victims he left behind were members of his own family. Besides conning a relative in his investment scheme, Stanley left his parents with thousands of dollars in debt and restitution payments when he vanished. Last year the couple filed for bankruptcy, and they face legal problems after co-signing some of the loans he never repaid.
The Rev. Stanley can hardly show his face in town without the locals pointing him out as the preacher whose son bilked his following out of a million dollars. Yet the elder Stanley, who says he had no idea whether his son was dead or alive during his four-year absence, steadfastly defends the honor of his son.
During a recent Sunday service at the Beverly Hills Tabernacle, the elder Stanley referred to his son, incarcerated in the county lockup less than a mile down the road, in mellifluous tones no fewer than three times. "He's still in jail, but we have faith that what has been spoken through prophecy is going to come to pass," the Rev. Stanley said. Like Stanley and so many of his supporters, the preacher seems to believe his son occupies a special place with the Almighty.
