Late last week a former Arkansas State Senator and a Bible College President were both indicted by the feds for money laundering and mail fraud.

Jon Woods

Jonathan E. Woods, 39, was Republican state senator who calls himself a “Christian conservative.”  However, his wikipedia page focuses more on his rock band than his legislating.

Oren Paris III, and since with a name like that he’s either got to be a teevee preacher or a porn star, he picked the preacher and took over from his father as president of Ecclesia College in Arkansas.  Here’s what you can major in there.  It appears that they have an enrollment of about 200.

These two fine, Christian men got together and came up with a plan.  In Arkansas, state legislators can give money – called GIFs for General Improvement Funds – to non-profits.  In a web of secrecy worthy of invisible ink and and a Dick Tracy badge, Woods gave a hunk of money to Paris, who then hid it from the board of directors of Ecclesia by sending it to a consultant friend of Woods.  The consultant then split the money between Wood and Paris and then took a little for himself.

They, of course, got caught.

But there’s more.

The indictment also quotes liberally from text messages between Paris and Woods, including what Paris called a “good selling point” when Woods encouraged other legislators to direct GIF money to Ecclesia: the small Christian college “produces graduates that are conservative voters. All state and secular colleges produce vast majority liberal voters.” According to the indictment, Woods replied: “Agreed.”

Yeah, that’s a good selling point for your theft of taxpayer funds – it’ll produce more people who want to steal from the taxpayers.

And, there’s this.

Woods, the legislator, was a big Donald Trump fan, but the crooked preacher man favored Ted Cruz.

We’ll keep you updated because it looks like there might be a girlfriend involved.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.