This Ohio megachurch stole from a mentally ill Chicago woman

AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad

A Chicago woman who is mentally ill in Rogers Park who has dementia has been allegedly coerced by a megachurch in Ohio for handing over hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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Currently, according to a CBS report, the woman is now under the care of the Cook County Public Guardian who is fighting to reclaim her life-savings money.

The news outlet reports that the 76-year-old, Bridget Pollard has lived by herself since her husband died back in 2015. According to Pollard’s niece, Bridget Johnson, the childless woman lived in hoarding-like conditions and refrained from relatives’ efforts to assist her.

According to CBS and Pollard’s niece, the elderly woman drained her late husband’s state pension and it wasn’t long before she wrote a $340,000 check out to Grace Cathedral — a megachurch in Akron, Ohio which televises the ministry of Rev. Ernest Angley.

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“She was basically stalked by church to give money,” a Public Guardian’s Office, Dawn Lawkowski-Keller told CBS. “The literature talks about how you’ll go to heaven if you give this money.”

According to CBS, the Public Guardian’s Office is now suing the church for every penny taken. Pollard hadn’t been to the church in many years and visited only a handful of times – once for her baptism – according to her niece. She does, however, stay in touch through a singer at the church, Corliss Whitney, who is named in the public guardian lawsuit.

“Miss Whitney became her power of attorney. She tried to petition to become her guardian, which is very unusual,” said Lawkowski-Keller to the news outlet. “She never once tried to remove her from that bad situation.”

According to the news outlet, public records reveal Whitney has two addresses – one in Ohio and the second on Chicago’s South Side. Pollard’s relatives are convinced Whitney had ulterior motives.

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After a doctor diagnosed Pollard with bipolar disorder as well as discovered she lacks the capacity to make sound decisions and is unable to make personal or financial decisions — Pollard now currently lives in a nursing home on the city’s North Side as her home is no longer considered safe, according to the CBS.

“I’m very sad for my aunt, that she spent all these years she thought she had a good friend, and a church she believed in, and this was all done in the name of God,” Pollard’s niece said to the news outlet.

Meanwhile, the Public Guardian’s Office has partially frozen the church’s assets as it attempts to get Pollard’s money back.

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