CNN.com

Bishop Earl Paulk, a charismatic preacher brought down by a series of sex scandals, has died.  He was 81.  Paulk's success as a preacher was overshadowed time and again by allegations of sexual impropriety.  One allegation ended in a civil suit that was settled out of court in 2003.  The accuser said Paulk molested her when she was a child.  A second woman claimed the bishop forced her into a 14-year affair.  She filed, withdrew and refiled a suit.  During a deposition the bishop said under oath the woman was the only one he slept with outside of marriage.  But a court-ordered paternity test showed that he also fathered a child with his sister-in-law.  Other allegations, some true, some unfounded, cost the church membership, as worshippers dwindled from 10,000 to about 1,000.
(Atlanta, Georgia)

 

Submitted on: 3/29/09