If you’re a hard core listener of TGA, you might remember that we reported on a whistleblower in the LDS church that exposed its massive financial coffers: over 100 billion dollars and growing. The whistleblower reported that the Mormon church was spending practically nothing on charitable services, this despite the fact that it has told its members that their money was being used almost exclusively for such purposes. Instead, they are hoarding money, and using it on private investments that have nothing to do whatsoever with the supposed “mission” of the organization.

A group of 9 church members are now suing the church in court for failing to properly use the money they had donated for charitable purposes.

“Despite [the church’s] representations to the contrary, a substantial and significant amount of the donations it receives are not directed towards humanitarian aid, nor any other philanthropic or charitable purpose,” the suit states.

Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the fraud, the suit has a copy of the 2007 tax form that their investment organization had. As you can see, it’s pretty egregious:

…[A] portion of a 2007 tax form on which Clarke, Ensign Peak’s CEO, declared the book value of all the fund’s assets at $1 million — when, the suit says, it was closer to $38 billion.

Only off by 3800% you say? Why, not even hucksters like Donald Trump would dare cook the books that bad. Of course, the government did so little to actually stop the fraud that it’s practically a joke. The SEC fined Ensign Peak, the group that committed the fraud, a paltry 4 million dollars for using countless shell companies to hide it’s income. That’s roughly  0.00004% of their actual fortune. To call that pathetic would be a disservice to the word. It would be more accurate to call this whole thing immense corruption, or intense cowardice. Both are likely.

The good news is that this small class action lawsuit could balloon if the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals allows the suit to go through. Meanwhile, lawyers on both sides are still trying to make their case, or in the defense’s end, to try and dismiss it. We’ll need to wait and see what the results of this are. Given the fact that the IRS hasn’t done anything to religious orgs that break their rules, I have very little faith that anything will happen. Society tends to give an infinite get-out-of-jail-free card to religion. I can’t imagine a time where that will ever change.