U.S. Secret Service says ministry’s handbills look too much like real money

07:28 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 6, 2006

By Donna Fielder / Staff Writer

The U.S. Secret Service has seized bogus million-dollar bills printed as religious tracts from a Denton ministry, saying the bills too closely resemble real money. The ministry leader says he’ll continue to pass the tracts out until he is ordered to stop.

Courtesy photo

The Secret Service seized more than 8,000 of these religious tracts from The Great News Network, a Christian ministry based in Denton.

Three agents visited The Great News Network at 2012 W. University Drive about 1 p.m. Friday and seized 83 100-count packets of what appear to be $1 million bills totaling $8.3 billion. There is no real $1 million bill, and Great News Net­work founder Darrel Rundus said he doesn’t understand how he could be accused of counterfeiting something that doesn’t exist.

“We’re a group that equips Christians with materials on how to share their faith,” Rundus said Monday from his Great News Network’s world headquarters in Denton. “One way we do it is gospel tracts. That’s what these are — gospel tracts. You’d think the Secret Service would have more to do than raid a Christian ministry.”

In a written “official statement,” Run­dus said the Secret Service was overzealous.

“They violated our constitutional rights by depriving us of property without due process. Without a court order, warrant or any legal precedent, they barged into our office, disrupted our daily activities and illegally seized our property. Is it possible that there is more to this than meets the eye? Is it possible that GNN has been targeted by them and are the object of their harassment not because the bills look real but in fact because of the gospel message on the back?”

The statement solicits prayers and funds from the public to help fight a legal battle over the bills.

Rundus said he founded the ministry about three years ago in his Flower Mound home and it soon outgrew his living quarters. He moved it to the Denton building about a year ago, he said. The Great News Network is affiliated with Ray Comfort’s Living Waters Publications, a California ministry and publishing business that printed the tracts.

Rundus said he will continue getting supplies of the tract from Living Waters and keep distributing them.

Mark Lowery, special agent in charge of the Dallas district of the U.S. Secret Service, said that his office will be contacting the Secret Service office in Los Angeles to alert them to the Living Waters Publications’ role in the case, and that it will be up to that office and the U.S. attorney’s office in that district to decide how to deal with Living Waters.

The fake bills are the same size as U.S. currency. They have the distinctive peach and green coloring of new $20 bills and appear to carry both the Department of Treasury and U.S. Federal Reserve seals.

A close look at the Treasury seal, however, reveals the words “Thou shalt not steal.”

The back of the bill is similarly authentic. But around the edges of the bill are written admonitions against looking at a woman with lust and other sins and urging repentance.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

The Great News Network, at 2012 W. University Drive, is distributing religious tracts that resemble a $1,000,000 bill.

According to federal Web sites, the largest bill made is a $100,000 bill, but it only circulates among Federal Reserve banks. Grover Cleveland’s picture, which appears on the $1 million religious tracts, actually appears on the $1,000 bill.

Specific federal statutes govern production of anything that resembles currency, said Bill Flowers, assistant agent in charge of the Dallas office of the U.S. Secret Service. Some statute sections deal with counterfeiting with the intent of defrauding. Others apply to advertising measures.

It is not necessary to intend to defraud someone to run afoul of federal law when making currency simulations, he said. And that is where The Great News Network comes in, he said.

Bills made for novelties or advertisements must be one and one-half times larger or less than three-quarters the size of a real bill. They may not contain anything that appears to be the official seals.

Flowers said that recently, someone on the East Coast took one of the $1 million bills to a bank. The bank forwarded the bill to the Secret Service. The tract was traced back to The Great News Network in Denton, and the Dallas Secret Service office was notified.

“They [The Great News Network] were not in regulation. We spoke with them and told them our concerns about these reproductions,” Flowers said. “They provided us with what they had in the office. We asked them not to be distributing them.”

Flowers said his agents plan to meet this week with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District. The outcome of that meeting could be a formal “cease and desist” letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The Secret Service will act on the wishes of the U.S. attorney, he said.

“We hope they will adhere to the guidelines,” Flowers said. “This investigation is continuing. In our opinion, they’re in violation of this code.”

Lowery said the Secret Service doesn’t want the public to think that it harasses anyone unnecessarily.

“We didn’t seek out this case; it came to us,” Lowery said. “We can’t determine which laws we enforce and which ones we don’t enforce. We’re a very busy agency with a lot of responsibility, and we take what we do very seriously.”

DONNA FIELDER can be reached at 940-566-6885. Her e-mail address is dfielder@dentonrc.com .