James Gill GETS it.... Thank you Mr. Gill

Now all we need is for the city to figure what to do about the blighted properties Toris Young has left in our neighborhood.

Toris Young is under indictment and in trouble with the law.... Again.

Toris Young is Bibleway.  Bibleway owns 3 consistently Blighted Properties with code violations in NorthWest Carrollton.
These empty lots do not eliminate blight they only create a different kind. Please see the photos in the links:


http://nwcarrollton.blogspot.com/2011/09/bibleway-blight-its-everywhere.html
Location Address 2940 JOLIET ST
Owner: BIBLE WAY BAPTISTCHURCH Mailing Address P O BOX 850341 NEW ORLEANS, LA 70185
This location has Permitting & Safety Issues. The sand is piled too high on the lot and has covered the drains and the sidewalks.


Location Address 8419 S CLAIBORNE Ave
Owner: BIBLE WAY BAPTISTCHURCH Mailing Address 1829 HAMILTON ST NEW ORLEANS, LA 70118


http://nwcarrollton.blogspot.com/2011/09/bibleway-blight-abandoned-cars-on-apple.html
Location Address 8325 & 8523 Apple
Owner: Greater Bibleway Housing CDCL
Mailing Address 2936 Joliet St. New Orleans 70118


2925 Joliet is also a Bibleway Property but it has an unoccupied house on it.
8515 Pritchard Place is also listed as a Bibleway Property. This property has a house on it.


The city's blight stat meetings focus on number of houses demolished as a measure of success.  We will measure success when these vacant lot properties are consistently cleaned up and the houses are renovated and occupied.  We've been asking for help addressing these issues for YEARS.  All we've seen is James Gill's opinion columns and Toris Young repeatedly in jail.  What can the city do to help with this issue? 

See Opinion by James Gill in the Times Picayune >>>
Pastor Toris Young racking up indictments: James Gill

The effrontery of our thieving pastor Toris Young is something to behold. According to his latest indictment, Young screwed the federal government out of close to a million bucks while awaiting trial for running up large bills on credit cards in other people's names.

Rusty Costanza, The Times-Picayune archive The Rev. Toris Young.

Young, who had been indicted for fraud and identity theft just before Katrina, wound up in the penitentiary after pleading guilty in 2006. Meanwhile, the feds now allege, Young took the Small Business Administration to the cleaners for imaginary reconstruction of a church and ancillary buildings destroyed in the storm.

The SBA transferred the last installment to Young's bank account on the very same day he began his sentence for the earlier scam.

We already knew that Young is not the most circumspect of crooks. He had been out of prison for less than a year when he pulled a bank fraud in Mississippi. Last year, he pleaded guilty to that one too, and is now back inside. A perusal of his most recent indictment suggests that it will be many more years before he is at liberty again.

If a smart crook does not draw attention to himself, far less do his utmost to get his name in the newspapers, Young must be deemed a pretty dumb one. As soon as he got out of the joint, he was to be found pushing his way to the front wherever the cameras gathered. In 2009, he was a leading light in the drive to recall then-Congressman Joseph Cao, which was pretty stupid, considering the law does not allow a congressman to be recalled. Meanwhile, he joined Corey Miller in a campaign to stop "senseless murders" on the streets of New Orleans.

Miller is something of an expert on the subject on murder and was under house arrest awaiting trial for one at the time. His stage name as a fairly successful rapper was C-Murder, so this was not a crime-fighting duo with much credibility. Miller got life.

Young, meanwhile, held himself out as the head of a vast ministry built up since his ordination in 1987 by "a council of International Pastors under the Auspices of The Spoken Word Ministerial Alliance of Greater New Orleans." According to his website, his empire, with its "main sanctuary" on Joliet Street, included a children's church, a computer lab, a school, a cafeteria, administrative buildings and two housing complexes for the poor and elderly. Young had been undaunted by Katrina; his church remained "live and full of the "Holly Spirit." No, it wasn't Christmas; Young meant that the Paraclete had descended on Joliet Street.

Well, he didn't find much there. Certainly yours truly did not when paying a visit in 2009. Where the array of glorious buildings purportedly stood, a few scruffy and vacant lots were all that was to be seen. The address given for one of the housing units did not exist, and the other was a pumping station.

It was not because of a shortage of cash that Young's ministry no longer existed, if, indeed, it ever had. He did not let the grass grow under his feet when Katrina struck, claiming extensive damage to church property and applying on Sept. 10, 2005, for a low-interest federal loan.

According to the indictment just handed up, Young extracted $923,000 from the SBA on the strength of forged construction invoices. All the money went into Young's pocket, and the feds now want it back. Good luck on that one.

Oct. 12, 2006, was a decidedly mixed day for Young in his relations with the federal government. While the marshals carted him off to the pen, the SBA credited his bank account with the balance of the loan, $463,900. He had little chance to spend the loot right away, presumably, but he was evidently hard up a few months after his release.

In the fall of 2009, he was up to his old tricks, opening a bank account in Mississippi with someone else's Social Security number and stolen money orders. A Mississippi federal judge gave Young 27 months in January last year, but, since he was still on probation at the time, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk tacked on another 24.

Now that he has been indicted again, Rev. Young is in what can only be described as a holy mess.

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James Gill is a columnist for The Times-Picayune. He can be reached at jgill@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3318.