Illicity
By Stephanie Simon, I.os Angeles
STANDISH. Mich.- What the &?!!?
Chances are, when you read that sen
tence, you tilled in the last word with
an expletixe. We knew you would.
Still, we didn't print the word in ques
tion because we didn't want to offend
That's the odd thing about swear
ing. You know a whole slew of curse
words: you may even say some your
self. But you don't want to read them
in the newspaper or listen to them on
the radio or hear them broadcast on
the PA system as you stroll down a
supermarket aisle with your children.
Although we use them all the time,
these words are taboo. They're cen
sored. In Michigan, thev’re also ille
gal.
Well, not exactly illegal. It's OK to
say if you're alone. For the
last 102 years, however, it has been
illegal in Michigan to “use any inde
cent. immoral, obscene, vulgar or in
sulting language in the presence or
hearing of any woman or child." It's
a dust) old law. tucked in a section
of the penal code that bans unmar
ried cohabitation and exhibition of
deformed human bodies. But it's law
nonetheless. Just ask Timothy
Boomer.
Boomer, a 24-year-old engineering
technician, has been charged with
Olympics committee expels 6 members, vows reforms
By Alan Ahrahamson and Mike
Pen tier. Los Ansieles Times
LAUSANNF.. Switzerland _ Aiming
to blunt the biggest corruption scan
dal in the 105 years of the Olympic
movement, officials on Sunday ex
pelled six members and vowed to
institute radical reforms in the way
sites are selected for future Games.
International Olympic Committee
President Juan Antonio Samaranch
also announced that Salt Lake City
would keep the 2002 Winter Games
and the 2000 Summer Games will
stay in Sydney. Australia, despite al
legations of bribery, first in Salt Lake,
later in Sydney , that precipitated the
spiraling scandal.
Capping an emergency two-day
meeting, Samaranch also said he has
not once considered resigning, de
spite calls from outside the lOC tor
him to step down. But he said he will
After months of tribulations, church leader’s
trial set to begin
By Michael A. Fletcher,
The Washington Post
The embarrassing revelations have
tumbled out one after another for a
year and a half, engulfing the Rev.
Henry J. Lyons in a seemingly bot
tomless scandal and plunging the
nation’s largest black religious orga
nization into disarray.
It began when Lyons' wife set fire
to a $700,000 waterfront home that
the minister owned with another
woman. Soon, the head of the Na
tional Baptist Convention USA Inc.
was connected to a dazzling array of
luxuries, including a 5.5-carat dia
mond ring, a mink coat and expen
sive cars _ many of which he is al
leged to have purchased for his mul
tiple mistresses. It was even alleged
that the reverend enjoyed puffing an
occasional joint in the comfort of the
bathtub.
The nature of the charges may be
salacious, but Florida prosecutors say
Lyons is more than just a man ol the
cloth who fell victim to weaknesses
of the flesh. Instead, they call Lyons,
56, a criminal who fleeced millions
of dollars from corporations eager to
do business with his denomination
and used that money to finance his
extravagant lifestyle.
A Florida jury is scheduled to be
gin hearing evidence Monday in
Lyons’ trial on grand theft and rack
eteering charges. If convicted, Lyons,
the elected leader of an organization
that includes at least 1 million black
Baptists around the country, could
face 30 years in prison. A federal trial
loose lips law
using obscenities in front of a w oman
and her children. The case goes to
court Monday. And it's kicked off
quite a debate in this one-stoplight
town of 1,400, tucked beside Lake
Huron. Boomer admits he talked dirty.
It happened after he capsized his ca
noe while paddling down the Rifle
River last summer. He was licked off
at fulling in the water. And he was
annoyed when his buddies guffawed.
So he swore. Then, he swore more. It
became a game, the swearing; his
friends were hooting at him, he was
splashing them, and they were all
cussing each other out. "It wasn't out
of anger or hostility or vulgarity."
Boomer explained. "It w as just clean
fun." For him, maybe.
But not for the woman canoeing by
with two young children. She covered
her toddler's ears to block the smut.
Her 5-year-old son heard it all. Nor
was it fun for the sheriff's deputy pa
trolling the river. He could hear
Boomer’s F-words a quarter-mile
away. And he decided that Arenac
County, Mich., would not put up with
such profanity. So he pulled over
Boomer's canoe and charged him with
a misdemeanor. "Our job is to uphold
the law.” Sheriff's Deputy Jim
Mosciski said. "It was a good ticket."
Needless to say, Boomer didn't think
so.
Swearing, a criminal offense'.’ That
just didn’t sound right. He called the
ask for a vote of confidence on his
leadership at a special lOC assembly
in March, a vote members of the rul
ing executive board said Sunday night
he is all but sure to w in. "It should not
have happened,” Samaranch said at a
news conference, a reference to the
widening scandal. "We are very-
sorry.
Samaranch, in comments echoed
Sunday by other senior Olympics of
ficials, said he hoped-the lOC can win
back the confidence of athletes, the
public and, perhaps most critically in
the near term, the corporate sponsors
that in recent years have helped make
the Olympics a billion-dollar business.
Michael Payne, the lOC's director
of marketing, said he believes the
complex site-selection reforms, the
expulsions and a series of other de
velopments announced Sunday will
send a ‘'very strong message” to spon
sors and others of the lOC’s "resolve
on charges of tax evasion, extortion,
money laundering and fraud awaits
him in the spring. Lyons’ lawyers,
however, contend the alleged theft is
really no more than business deals
gone bad. If anything, they argue, the
entire matter is one for the civil, not
the criminal, courts.
"This case is not about Dr. Lyons
stealing from the church. It is about
his dealings with corporate America
who saw an opportunity to sell their
wares to black America,” said Denis
M. deVlaming. a Clearwater. Fla., at
torney who is leading Lyons' defense
team. “It is like Michael Jordan. The
corporations wanted his endorsement
and they got it. Without Dr. Lyons'
endorsement, they were not going to
get their foot in the door.”
As president of the National Baptist
Convention, deVlaming said, Lyons
merely followed a long tradition in his
denomination of personally control
ling the group’s considerable finances
while observing no discernible ac
counting practices.
Indeed, in interviews with prosecu-
tors summarized in court papers,
former Lyons aides have said checks
from denomination members across
the country would frequently be sent
to Lyons at his church in St. Peters
burg. Frequently, Lyons would cash
them personally and then deposit the
money into church accounts, one of
which prosecutors allege he set aside
for his personal use. The aides said
there were no records documenting
those transactions other than bank
statements and canceled checks,
which Lyons kept locked in his office.
World and Nation
American Civil Liberties Union and
got a lawyer. In district court Mon
day. Boomer's attorney will ask a
judge to dismiss the case and declare
the law unconstitutional. It shreds our
right to tree speech, he will argue. If
that's not bad enough, it’s also way
too vague
What today defines 'indecent' ... in
the age ol MTV, shock trash radio and
the Starr report to Congress?" Law
yer William Street wrote in his brief
defending Boomer: Are political at
tack ads so "insulting" that they
should not air in front of children? Are
the Linda Tripp tapes so “immoral"
the state must not let women hear
them .’ Where do we draw the line?
Prosecutor Richard Vollbach Jr. has
a simple response: People are smart
enough to know obscenity when they
hear it. And Boomer's outburst was
most definitely obscene.
Vollbach defends the law as vital to
"protect families, and particularly
children, from loud and disgusting
language.” And what of the claim that
it tramples free speech? “Balderdash,”
he responds. Shouting obscenities
when you fall from a canoe hardly
counts as speech. Vollbach argues. It’s
more an animal re Ilex, like crying
when you're hurt. Surely it doesn't
merit constitutional protection.
Vollbach also points out that simi
lar local and state ordinances have
been upheld in Oregon. Georgia and
and commitment to the get to the bot-
tom of the matter
In other actions Sunday: David
Siband/e of Swaziland resigned, the
third lOC member to do so since the
scandal broke. Three others remain
under investigation. One more will
receive a formal warning about his
actions. In all. more than 10 percent
of the K )C's members, 11 sat the be
ginning of the year, have been impli
cated in the scandal.
Samaranch said he intends to send
two top officials to Sydney in the
coming weeks to investigate the situ
ation there. Australia’s Olympics
chief revealed Friday that he offered
. < l>7().()()() in inducements to two Afri
can delegates the night before Sydney
won the 2000 Game, by a mere two
The lOC will establish a permanent
ethics commission. A majority of
members would come from outside
When it was lime for Lyons to make
financial reports to the denomination,
he would draft them without the help
of bookkeepers or accountants.
Moreover, the aides have told pros
ecutors that it was not unusual for
Lyons as well as former convention
presidents to divide large offerings,
sometimes as much as $70,000, with
members of the group’s governing
board. And through the years, top con
vention officials have been the recipi
ents of "love offerings” and other
gifts, including automobiles, from
convention members.
"Historically, it was shown that
there was little concern for what the
president did with money as long as
he paid the convention’s bills,”
deVlaming said. “Dr. Lyons was not
the first individual to have the reins
that he did on church business. There
are specifics that we are going to go
into to establish that what he did is
not out of the ordinary.”
Attorneys on both sides plan to rely
on testimony from a wide range of
denomination board members, former
Lyons secretaries, past and present
convention employees and executives
of corporations that did business with
the convention to make their respec
tive cases. That testimony could shine
a harsh light on the long history of
lax financial management at the 104-
year-old denomination, according to
observers of the group.
“The National Baptist Convention
is one of the more-relaxed denomi
nations, in terms of what happens to
the money after it is raised,” said Rob
ert M. Franklin, president of Atlanta’s
to be argued in court
Illinois. Both sides claim to have pub
lic opinion behind them. In truth,
however, this town is divided as folks
argue about the peculiar power of
swearing. This case has touched a
nerve not only in Standish, but across
the state,
and Boomer is bewildered by the hub
hub. He only wanted to avoid a pen
alty of a $ 100 fine and up to 90 days
in jail. Yet somehow he’s become a
poster boy for free speech, or a sym
bol of the woeful decline of civility,
depending on whom you ask.
In Arenac County, Mosciski hopes
he will continue to be able to apply
the law, which he’s used on everyone
from smelt fishermen with overly
salty speech to drunks cursing blue
streaks in the hospital emergency
room. “1 agree with it,” he said. “I
don’t think that sort of language
should be used.”
But can we really bleep out profan
ity? Would we want to? Although we
rank the expletives Boomer shouted
among our language’s top five most
offensive words, they’re also among
the top five most frequently used, ac
cording to Timothy Jay, the author of
“Cursing in America” and a profes
sor at the Massachusetts College of
Liberal Arts. We use these words pre
cisely because they’re offensive, Jay
says, because they express emotions
that can’t be conveyed with a gentle
“oh. darn” or “gee whiz..”
the lOC, and Samaranch said such a
commission would ensure that the
lOC “conforms with the world’s best
practices in self-governance.”
The lOC will review every bid for
the Summer Games of 1996, won in
1990 by Atlanta, through the 2006
Winter Games, to be awarded in June,
for evidence of misconduct.
Finally, the lOC will try a new sys
tem tor picking the 2006 Games: No
more visits by lOC members to the
six bidding cities or by city boosters
to where lOC members live. And no
vote by the entire membership of the
lOC, as has been the case. Instead, a
special committee, made up of eight
lOC members, three athletes and oth
ers, will make the choice. No mem
ber of the executive board, the single
most powerful panel in the lOC, will
be part of the selection group, lOC
director-general Francois Carrard
said.
Interdenominational Theological
Center and a scholar on the black
church. “The Lyons scandal is pull
ing the veil up on these informal fi
nancial-management practices. Ev
erybody is appalled at what they see,
and now there is a cry for reform,
greater integrity and greater transpar
ency in the organization.”
Details of Lyons’ financial dealings
began emerging in July 1997 after his
wife, Deborah Lyons, 50, set fire to a
waterfront home near St. Petersburg.
Authorities said the deed was an act
of retaliation after she discovered her
husband owned the property with an
other woman. The woman, Bernice
Edwards, a convicted embezzler from
Milwaukee and a former denomina
tion employee, is being tried along
with Lyons.
As the scandal has unfolded, Lyons,
who had met with President Clinton
and traveled widely as a Baptist
leader, has been the subject of a se
ries of embarrassing allegations. A
former wife told a newspaper that
Lyons had beaten her; he was found
to have fathered two children out of
wedlock. In court papers, prosecutors
alleged that Lyons invoked Clinton’s
name and the Congressional Black
Caucus in an effort to extort money
from corporations.
Prosecutors have lined up a list of
corporate officials who say their firms
were defrauded by Lyons to testify
against him. In interviews with pros
ecutors, the executives have said
Lyons used his post as convention
president to solicit contributions for
charitable causes, only to pocket the
“The language you use when you’re
angry or sexual or funny is part ol how
you define yourself as a person,” Jay
contends. Or as Jeff Robinson, owner
of a Standish gym, put it: “There are
a lot of other criminal acts out there
that should be pursued. This is a silly
way for Standish to get on the map.”
Call it the cuss fuss. And listen in
to an earful of it: It’s the afternoon
lull at the Standish Bakery, just one
customer smoking over coffee at the
counter, the whole place smelling
sticky sweet like glazed doughnuts.
Chatting as they clean up, employees
Jannette Deering and Polly Ann
Laßean find they agree: They’re glad
the police are going after foul lan
guage.
Oh, they both use profanity; of
course they do. "I swear right along
with the best of them,” Deering says.
But not in front of strangers or chil
dren. It’s all about respect, they de
cide. Hurling dirty words in public is
disrespectful. And yeah, sure, darn
right it should be illegal. “You have a
right to say whatever you want
Deering begins. "... But you don’t
have to use bad words to say it,”
Laßean interrupts, finishing the
thought. “I like to be treated like a
lady.”
In their Harley-Davidson shirts and
Harley-Davidson caps, looking gruff
and tough and brawny, Bill Olsen and
Jack Gardner jaw with their wives in
Samaranch, who will be a nonvoting
member of the committee, said the
process will be used as a trial for fu
ture votes
The crisis in the Olympic move
ment was sparked last month with al
legations that lOC members or their
families got cash, college scholar
ships, medical care and other entice
ments from Salt Lake City boosters.
But Dick Pound, an lOC vice presi
dent from Canada, said Sunday the
seeds for the scandal were really sown
in Los Angeles in 1984, when, for the
first time, it became apparent that the
Games could be put on for profit.
The 1984 Games netted a $225
million profit; games in prior years
had typically been a break-even
proposition or a big loser. The 1976
Montreal Summer Games, for ex
ample, produced a deficit of more
thansl billion. After the 1984 Games,
increasing numbers of cities wanted
money. Lyons also stands accused of
forging documents and collecting
large sums of money as payment from
corporations for signing deals giving
them exclusive marketing rights to
members of his denomination.
Not only did Lyons allegedly
pocket those payments rather than
share them with the church, but pros
ecutors say he did not deliver what
he promised to the companies: the
millions of Baptists that he has touted
as willing customers. They say the
denomination has for years wildly
exaggerated its membership, claiming
8.5 million members while its actual
membership could be as small as 1
million. In addition, they say, Lyons
sold companies access to denomina
tion membership lists that did not ex
ist. When pressed to produce the
documents, prosecutors allege, he
simply concocted them by having an
aide pull random names from tele
phone number databases and other
sources.
Lyons also is accused of pocketing
more than $200,000 raised by the
Anti-Defamation League to help re
build the black churches burned in a
suspicious series of fires several years
ago. Florida prosecutors allege that
Lyons pocketed most of the
money,which was subsequently re
turned to the ADL once questions
were raised about its use. Prosecutors
also allege that Lyons stole hundreds
of thousands of dollars solicited in the
name of church schools, scholarship
funds and drug-rehabilitation pro
grams. The allegations have caused
some in the Baptist convention to call
the smoky dusk of the Granton Inn
bar. Like many locals, they’re fed up
with the carousing that wrecks the
peace of the Rifle River each summer.
Families go there for picnics and run
into campers drinking themselves
silly. It’s become a real aggravation.
So Olsen and Gardner are all for bust
ing anyone who mouths off at the
river. Matter of fact, they say, em
phatic now, voices rising, cursing has
noplace in public at all. Except maybe
at a hog rally.
“It’s about time they started doing
something about it,” Olsen growls.
His wife, Audrey, agrees: "If we al
low kids to hear these things, then by
the time they’re adults, that’s all
they're going to know. That’s how
they're going to communicate. And
then what kind of society will we
have?”
Scott Allen snorts at the idea of
prosecuting cussers. He’s sitting in the
bar with his fiancee and her 7-year
old son, kicking back over a beer and
some chips. If you’re so offended by
profanity, he says, consider his advice:
"You’ve got feet. Let them take you
elsewhere.”
in on the action, hoping to capitalize
on a revenue stream linked to the
Games that Pound estimated Sunday
is now worth “north of $2 billion” to
a winning city.
That kind of money produced a gift
giving, hospitality-showering, wining
and dining fest, a culture of luxury and
opportunity that many lOC members
came to expect. “Out there at the
edges; you know, the opportunities for
temptation increase,” said Pound,
who led a special six-member lOC in
ternal inquiry panel into events in Salt
Lake City. Three other investigations
are also ongoing, including one by the
U.S. Department of Justice looking
into the possibility of criminal wrong
doing.
for Lyons’ ouster. Some churches
have cut off their financial support for
the group and members say atten
dance at Lyons’ own St. Petersburg
congregation, Bethel Metropolitan
Baptist Church, has dipped substan
tially.
Still, the bulk of the denomination’s
members have chosen to stand behind
Lyons, ponying up large collections
to pay for his legal defense and pub
licly declaring him redeemed for
whatever sins he may have commit
ted. For his part, Lyons has acknowl
edged making unspecified “mistakes”
as convention president while casting
himself as a victim of an overzealous
white press and prosecutors who do
not understand how his church oper
ates. And despite his legal troubles,
Lyons has said that he plans to run
for a second five-year term as con
vention president next year.
DeVlaming said his biggest chal
lenge in defending Lyons will be con
veying to the all-white jury picked
earlier this month that, to understand
the case, they must realize the almost
unilateral control that Lyons enjoyed
as his denomination’s president. “It is
going to be a real obligation and chal
lenge to be able to educate them,” he
said.