If you come for Mary Cosby, she’ll send Jesus after you. If you come for her church, she’ll send her lawyers. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star is suing staffers from the for-profit arm of her church. Allegedly, these two staffers embezzled millions of dollars from the church, dating all the way back to the 2000s.
Mary Cosby is defending her church and its bank account
The Salt Lake City Tribune got all the details on Mary’s lawsuit, which just happened to come to light after the premiere of RHOSLC Season 5. While we’re watching Mary be petty with her costars on TV, she’s dealing with some major financial issues behind the scenes.
According to the court docs, Mary and Robert Cosby Sr. filed their suit against United Security Financial Inc., which is a for-profit business entity that the church owns. The lawsuit also includes Annie L. Johnson and Shawn Turner. Annie is the company’s president and Shawn is their secretary. The lawsuit accused them of a multi-year scheme where they would funnel money through the church to fund personal endeavors.
For example, in one part of the lawsuit, Annie supposedly took a title in her name for a church-owned radio station. In 2017, she decided to shutter the station, take down its transmission tower, and cancel the FCC license. At the time, the station had over $4.3 million in assets. The lawsuit claimed that Annie transferred those assets to her son, who sold them to a third party. The proceeds from that sale went right back to Annie’s purse, allegedly.
In another example, they claimed Annie stole “sacred tithes and offerings” from the churchgoers. Allegedly, she took the tithes and used the money to pay her American Express bill. The lawsuit claims that they have the receipts to prove it. They supposedly found a ledger in Annie’s handwriting showing payments made to her totaling $90,670.32. Yikes!
A culture of intimidation
The lawsuit lists numerous examples of forgery and embezzlement, dating back years and years. Additionally, Mary and Robert Sr. accused their staffers of intimidating other employees. In some instances, that helped them perpetuate their plot.
Specifically, the lawsuit accused Annie of abusing employees of USF and Faith Temple with “intimidation, threats, verbal abuse, racial degradation, and physical abuse.” In some instances, she would tell employees to cash checks for the church and give her money. She’d tell them the money was going back to Faith Temple, but the paper trail suggests otherwise.
Their alleged strongarm tactics also went outside of the church’s organization. In one part of the lawsuit, Annie is accused of “threatening” a notary public into notarizing a document with Robert Sr.’s forged signature. That resulted in a nearly $100,000 mortgage, some of which was then paid back by the Cosbys’ personal funds. Meanwhile, the bishop and the first lady of the church had no idea. Allegedly.
Mary and Robert are seeking damages of around $6.3 million. Stay tuned for updates as the case moves through the court.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City airs on Bravo, Wednesday nights at 9/8c.
TELL US – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST MARY’S STAFFERS? DOES IT CHANGE YOUR OPINION ABOUT THE PREVIOUS RUMORS SURROUNDING MARY’S CHURCH?
