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On January 4, investigators from the Jackson County Sheriff's Office banged on the door of a church parsonage in Independence. A woman who lives in the parsonage testified that she mistook the deputies for the pastor's daughter, describing her as a "temper tantrum all the time."
A hearing on Wednesday shed some light on the activities at New Covenant Faith Center, a church that's come under a very public investigation by Sheriff Mike Sharp's office. The sheriff's office removed cash, computers and firearms in the course of a search of the church, the parsonage and a "retreat." The church pastor, Lloyd D. Sartain, was taken into custody and released without being charged.
Sartain's attorney, John Carnes, has made a stink about the manner in which the investigation has been conducted. Last week, Carnes requested an order restraining Sharp and damages. Judge Robert M. Schieber denied the motion on Wednesday after listening to testimony from Sartain's wife, Penny, and two women who live with the couple in the parsonage near the church, which is on N. Jennings Road.
Lloyd Sartain did not attend Wednesday's hearing. A group of 20 or more churchgoers -- one asked a reporter if he was saved -- sat in the courtroom in a show of support for Penny Sartain and the other witnesses: Shirley Sloniker, the church secretary, and Esther Fiers, a 21-year-old woman who attended a school the church operates.
Among the highlights:
- Sloniker testified that sheriff's officials called out for McDonald's approximately an hour into the search. "So they were hungry?" Carnes asked. "Had a Big Mac attack?"
- Investigators told Sloniker that Lloyd Sartain was headed to jail or might flee to Brownsville, Texas, and then Mexico.
- Fiers said she believed at first that one of the Sartains' daughters, Tamah Vansandt, was at the door on the night the investigators came with their "big, huge guns." According to Fiers, Vansandt had come to the residence on an earlier occasion and tried to kick in the door. Fiers said Vansandt also accused her of having sex with Lloyd Sartain.
- Fiers said that she has a verbal agreement to take ownership of the Leeds Diner from Penny Sartain. Fiers said she had worked her way up from "dishwasher girl" to general manager.
- Penny Sartain told sheriff's investigators the location of a safe that contained $75,000 to $100,000 in cash. Sartain said the money was for her and her husband's retirement. The Sartains keep their wealth in their home and in cash out of fear the "banks go down," Sartain said.
- Sartain said the congregation had not met as a whole since the church was searched. (The request for a restraining order said the sheriff "tore up the sanctuary and the parsonage.") Said Sartain: "We're just trying to survive."
In denying the motion, Schieber said he was "hard-pressed" to understand precisely what he was being asked to restrain. (At times, Carnes seemed to be making a case that the constitution protects the subjects of search warrants from feeling sad or inconvenienced.) The judge suggested that Carnes could raise his issues in a motion to suppress or dismiss (in the event charges are brought) or in a civil suit.
Schieber said that in his days before becoming a judge, he used to represent clients who were subjected to long-running criminal investigations. "Unfortunately, it's the way our justice system sometimes works," he said.
Carnes said his next move would likely be an effort to have the search warrant
unsealed.
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