Bishop Edir Macedo Bezerra, the billionaire founding father of the neo-Pentecostal Common Church of the Kingdom of God, who Brazilian authorities as soon as accused of utilizing church funds to complement himself, has bought his luxurious apartment unit within the Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Seaside, Florida, for $13 million.
The sale, which was made on Sept. 10, was reported by the true property agency Redfin.
Macedo’s apartment, which was beforehand bought model new in 2016 for $9.65 million, is described by Redfin as “the peak of coastal luxurious.”
It’s a “one-of-a-kind duplex penthouse” boasting 6,121 sq. toes of area and the Dezervator — a non-public automobile elevator that goes on to the apartment’s four-car sky storage. The apartment, which has 4 massive bedrooms, excessive ceilings and floor-to-ceiling glass home windows, additionally has a non-public balcony pool with ocean views.
Macedo and his household are proponents of the prosperity gospel, which teaches that “believers have a proper to the blessings of well being and wealth and that they’ll acquire these blessings by means of constructive confessions of religion and the ‘sowing of seeds’ by means of the trustworthy funds of tithes and choices.”
The 80-year-old bishop has a internet value of $1.9 billion, in keeping with Forbes, because of his possession of File, the second-largest broadcasting firm in Brazil. He additionally owns a majority stake within the personal Brazilian financial institution Banco Digimais.
Whereas it’s unclear the place he acquired the cash to purchase the File, prosecutors in Brazil accused the bishop and 9 different individuals linked to his church in 2009 of stealing billions of {dollars} in donations from his principally poor followers and utilizing that cash to complement himself, The Related Press reported.
Prosecutors alleged the church generated some $800 million in income from adherents in 4,500 temples throughout Brazil alone and claims to have almost 8 million followers globally. They confirmed a historical past of monetary dealings by Common officers going way back to the early Nineteen Nineties, exchanging cash generally within the church’s parking zone. The cash was then despatched to accounts managed by Common’s associates at 5 U.S. banks, then returned to Brazil as offshore loans.
The Common Church has dismissed the allegations as “utterly deceptive and nearly similar to those who gave rise to lawsuits and investigations which have already been tried and located to be not true.”
In 2019, The Rio Occasions reported that Macedo may not be sentenced for the fees that have been introduced in opposition to him as a result of the statute of limitations had expired as a result of eight years of judicial delays.
That very same 12 months, the church was discovered responsible of forcing or pressuring pastors to bear vasectomies as a way to stay or advance within the group. Former pastors alleged that the coverage was instituted to make them extra out there to the establishment and cut back issues when shifting them between areas.
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