August 5, 2002
Dallas man sent to prison for church-related scams
___By Joe Hewitt
___Special to the Standard
___DALLAS--A son of missionaries convicted in federal court of using his connections with Southern Baptist missionaries and preachers to scam more than $800,000 was sentenced July 19 to eight years in federal prison and another five years of supervised release.
___He also was ordered to make financial restitution.
___A jury in the court of U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer found William "Steve" Solesbee, 51, guilty of 12 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud and bankruptcy fraud Feb. 27.
___Solesbee was born in the Philippines to Southern Baptist missionaries. As an adult, he started an organization called Missionary Kids International Fellowship and promoted a 1996 gathering of MKs in Hawaii. According to testimony in his eight-day trial, he bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of advertising in Baptist state papers to promote the gathering but never paid for the ads.
___Solesbee's ad for the event ran once in the Baptist Standard in April 1996, and the $1,800 cost of the ad never was paid. A second scheduled ad was not published.
___Solesbee also sold airline tickets and hotel accommodations through his Bonaventure Travel Agency in Dallas to hundreds of people, including the 90-member Ouachita Baptist University band. Wire transfers of money from Ouachita became the basis for some of the wire-fraud charges after Solesbee kept the money instead of paying the airlines.
___According to testimony at trial, Solesbee's exploits ranged from cheating a retired church pianist out of her $79,000 inheritance to scamming airlines of nearly $500,000, and business "bust-outs" from Florida to Hawaii.
___Judge Buchmeyer gave Solesbee the upper limit of federal sentencing guidelines. The five years of supervisory release include conditions designed to keep Solesbee from resuming his previous actions. He won't be able to get a credit card or open additional bank accounts without court approval.
___One witness, Sylvia Green, a church staff musician and pianist for the Dallas Baptist Association Pastors' Conference, testified that Solesbee had been conning people for more than 20 years.
___She met Solesbee at a gathering of retired Southern Baptist pastors at Shocco Springs, Ala., in 1996. She was to play the piano and do a comedy skit, and he asked to perform with her. He sang beautifully, she said, and spoke to the group, moving them to tears. Their friendship blossomed until Green considered Solesbee a soulmate and spent birthdays and Thanksgiving with him and his parents in Dallas.
___He would call her often, even when he was out of town, she said. She trusted him completely. Green testified that Solesbee "gained my confidence and trust, and I told him about my dad, ... who had sold his land and got a good sum of money for it. I was his old-maid daughter, missionary to Texas, and he left me that money."
___Solesbee said he would guarantee her a 12 percent return and personally guarantee the safety of her investment and that she could get the money back any time she needed it. She gave him $79,000, some of which was wired from Crystal Springs, Miss., and became the basis for one of the wire-transfer fraud charges.
___During his trial, Solesbee, balding and with a graying beard, each day slumped at the defense table, dressed in a wrinkled gray T-shirt, blue jeans and deck shoes. At the July 19 sentencing hearing, he was dressed in a bright orange prison jumpsuit and slumped even more. He nodded expressionless at his 82-year-old father and sister seated on the front bench and his mother in a wheelchair beside them. He spoke only to his attorneys and had nothing to say to the court before sentencing.
___At trial, the prosecution called 50 witnesses to testify against Solesbee. The defense called only one witness. Solesbee never took the stand himself.
___Defense Attorney John Nation, in his closing arguments on Feb. 27, portrayed Solesbee as a man who lived far beyond his means but who "couldn't organize a picnic."
___In defense of Solesbee, Nation said the 1996 mission meeting was not a scam. "E. V. Hill preached. Doug Oldham sang. Ouachita Baptist Band played. Mission Meeting '96 wouldn't have happened unless Steve Solesbee thought of it and planned it. There was no doubt that Mission Meeting '96 was on the level," he said.
___According to testimony of dozens of witnesses, Solesbee bought businesses with worthless promissory notes, paid his help with hot checks, looted the assets of the businesses, kept the income but didn't pay the bills. Then when things got hot, witnesses testified, he ran to the safety of bankruptcy. While one business was sinking, he was usually acquiring another and talking friends into investing, witnesses also testified.
___George Swan of Bedford, a Southern Baptist missionary in Mexico for 14 years, testified that he worked for Solesbee managing a telephone answering service in Conroe in 1996. Swan, now pastor of a Spanish-language church in Hurst, said he sold a house and loaned Solesbee the $37,000 he got for it. Swan never got his money back, nor was he paid for his work, he said.
___Solesbee did business as Answer USA, McKinney Communications, American Messaging Centers, Bonaventure Travel Agency, Stephens Communications, American Answering Service, Presidents Travel, Imperial Tours, VIP Answering Service and Amalgamated America. He operated in Dallas, Conroe and Wichita Falls; Fort Myers, Tampa and Port Charlotte, Fla.; Honolulu and Atlanta. Solesbee has taken bankruptcy nine times since 1982.
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