ATLANTA -- The 80-year-old leader of a former suburban Atlanta megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge that he lied under oath. Cobb County Magistrate Frank Cox said Archbishop Earl Paulk of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church was sentenced to ten years probation and a $1,000 fine for the felony charge.The felony perjury charge against Paulk stem from a civil lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the church by former church employee, Mona Brewer.
The lawsuit alleges that Earl Paulk manipulated Brewer into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. In a 2006 deposition for the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer. But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother's son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church. As part of Brewer's lawsuit, eight women have given sworn depositions that they were coerced into sexual relationships with Earl Paulk. A judge ordered the paternity test at the request of the Cobb County district attorney's office and the GBI. Paulk and his brother, Don, have been hit with multiple lawsuits from former members alleging they were coerced into sexual affairs, but this is the first time criminal charges have been filed against the archbishop. Paulk has been in bad health for the last couple of years after a battle with cancer, limiting his activity with the independent charismatic church he and his brother founded in 1960. At its peak in the early 1990s, the Cathedral at Chapel Hill claimed about 10,000 members and 24 pastors and was a media powerhouse. The church was able to build a Bible college, two schools, a worldwide TV ministry and a $12 million sanctuary the size of a fortress in Decatur outside Atlanta. Today membership is down to about 1,500, the church has 18 pastors, most of them volunteers, and the Bible college and TV ministry have shuttered -- a downturn blamed largely on complaints about the sexual scandals.
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