FOUNDING OF CHURCH KNIGHTS

In 1994, I was contacted by the founder of a very large Ministry. The founder advised that he feared that the ministry had several misappropriations and there were discrepancies discovered by one of the employees in the finance office.

After several days of reviewing bank statements and ledgers, several red flags jumped out. Recent audits by an external accounting firm had missed the discrepancies.

After obtaining approval from the founder and several board members the recently vacated offices of terminated and resigned employees were examined. The offices were treated as crime scenes. The doors had been secured from the day the employees vacated the campus. Two of the office trash cans had not been emptied and still contained partially destroyed documents. Another treasure was the shredder which also had not been emptied.

After many hours reading and auditing; pasting and taping the discrepancies evolved into several major theft investigations. Upon completion of several very lengthy reports and extensive presentations to the founder and the board, the founder requested that I attempt to recover the embezzled and missing assets.

The recovery effort lead to litigation and three years of litigation support. When the litigation came to a logical conclusion over $250,000.00 was recovered. The recovery was not complete and several of the vehicles and assets were not recovered.

During a briefing the founder advised me that he had searched and made many phone calls and was unable to find a Private Investigation Firm that possessed experience in investigating incidents in religious institutions. He remembered that I was a minister and a State Law Enforcement Captain and decided to contact me for advice.

After that briefing, I searched for a private investigation firm that had a specialty which included the investigation of crimes and incidents in religious institutions, churches, ministries and non-profit organizations.  I did find Christian Investigators but no firms with the desired specialty. After discussion with several attorneys that represented churches and ministries all of which agreed that there was a need for such a group.

I decided to work towards the establishment of Private Investigation Agency that could assist with internal and external investigations within the above listed institutions.

Today, with a network of private investigators, Church Knights provides internal and external investigative services,  pre-employment & pre-volunteer screening and reviews for churches and ministries as well as non-profit organizations.

During the course of numerous investigations it came to light that if the administration of the church, ministry or non-profit had conducted a pre-employment, pre-volunteer or due diligence reviews, most of the incidents of abuse, theft and fraud could have been prevented.

With access to a network of record and information databases and a nationwide network of private investigators, Church Knights has expanded the services to due diligence reviews of vendors, credential and claimed experience verification with a short turn around time.

A Church Knights specialty is litigation support services, which allows us to assist your attorneys in obtaining documentation and information needed to support the litigation effort.

The driving force behind the establishment of Church Knights was to provide quality faith-based investigative and litigation support to entities that operate within the Kingdom of God.