Skip to main contentFor a while, it looked like Lon Mabon was down for the count. The conservative Christian crusader spent 42 days in jail last year for contempt of court. None of his initiatives qualified for the ballot last November. The glory days of the Oregon Citizens Alliance were a distant memory.
But Mabon refuses to go quietly. He's back for another round in the ring, and this time he hasn't just found religion--he's become a church.
Last year, in the midst of his political nosedive, Mabon founded New Covenant Ministries International, a nonprofit religious organization, and decreed himself "First Presiding Patriarch (Overseer)."
New Covenant isn't just any type of church. It's a "corporation sole"--an unusual entity made up of only one person, who is the corporation. Legally, Lon is the church, and the church is Lon. When he speaks, the church speaks. When he shops at Safeway, the church shops at Safeway.
Mabon isn't letting his spiritual calling distract him from his political goals, however. He told WW that New Covenant holds services and hosts speakers at its headquarters in the OCA's old office in Brooks. Mabon is also promoting three new initiatives for the 2004 election. The Divine Sovereignty Life Amendment would ban abortion, physician-assisted suicide and certain forms of birth control; the Student Protection Act III would prohibit public schools from promoting or endorsing homosexuality; and the Judicial Oath of Office Act would modify the oath taken by judges and bar them from creating law from the bench.
Despite his newfound status as First Presiding Patriarch, Mabon's legal troubles continue to plague him. In March, he lost yet another round in his ongoing court cases with Catherine Stauffer, the photographer who sued the OCA in 1991 after she was forcibly expelled from a meeting. Multnomah Circuit Court Judge Ronald E. Cinniger gave Stauffer the right to seize the assets of Mabon and his wife, Bonnie, in order to collect a judgment of $80,000, which the Mabons have so far refused to pay.
Unfortunately, the Mabons no longer seem to have assets. According to Stauffer, the Mabons have transferred everything they own, including the house they live in, to other people and entities.
Stauffer's attorney, Brent Foster, says New Covenant is simply the Mabons' latest attempt to avoid paying their debt.
"We're kind of shocked to see the same kind of fraudulent transfers going on again," Foster told WW. "It seems to reflect this notion that [the Mabons] are above or beyond the law."
Victoria Cox, spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Justice's Charitable Activities Section, says her department has never addressed the question of individual liability in a corporation sole. "There's no board of directors, and no members," she said. "So there's none of the oversight you'd normally have in a nonprofit."
The Mabons appeared before the Oregon Court of Appeals last week in a last-ditch effort to stave off defeat, arguing that Judge Cinniger was not qualified to issue any rulings because he had not taken the proper oath required of a judge.
WWeek 2015