he Blodgetts sought to befriend Francis Steffan (Frank to his friends) and his positively delightful wife, Elizabeth. Frank has been with the network from the first day hosting the daily hour entitled The American Voice. A political pundit, the Hayes' are fine Christians that love the Lord and hate the beast. They have always been forthright and honest in their dealings with Christian Media, and Susan and I consider it a privilege to count them as our friends.

Living in the same vicinity as we do in Southern Oregon, Frank and Liz have fellowshipped with the Blodgetts, inviting them over to their house for dinner and going to the Blodgetts as well. They have confirmed several of the complete LIES that the Blodgetts have spread concerning Susan, Craig, and myself.

In one dinner episode, Frank has told us that Chris admitted telling various people around the country that they were living in "unlivable" conditions at our guest cabin. Because Frank and Liz have both been here repeatedly, they are eyewitnesses of the conditions at our place. Thus, they are in a unique position to judge the statements made by the Blodgetts.

Frank confirmed that Chris had also told him the story that he had killed a man, gone to prison, been paroled, and then pardoned. However, this turned out to be just another whopper from the Blodgetts. According to Susie McCurdy of the parole board for the state of Nevada, no-one named Blodgett has ever been pardoned for any crime in the state of Nevada. (19) Not only that, but there is no record of anyone named Christopher Blodgett having ever been in the prison system at all. Based on the information we now have, Chris lied when he said he went to prison. He lied when he said he was paroled, and he lied when he said he was pardoned.

Of course, Chris could easily refute this information by producing a copy of his so-called "pardon." After all, if you were pardoned from prison by the governor, wouldn't you keep a copy of such an important document? He won't produce any documentation to support his statements because such documents don't exist. Chris Blodgett has, once again, been proven to be a liar of the first magnitude.

Francis Steffan was told many of the same lies that we were told concerning Chris Blodgett's past. For example, Chris told us he was in the military in a special forces unit where he was deployed in Southeast Asia as a professional assassin. He claimed that he conducted long range patrols where he would be sent behind enemy lines, seek out an assigned enemy leader, and shoot him from a distance.

Indeed, in a broadcast last spring on the network, Chris claimed to have been wounded by a sniper during his service in Viet Nam.

When Chris told me this story, I said "Oh, sort of like the LRRP's?" He didn't know what that term meant. Ironically, I had completely forgotten about this early conversation until one of our Ohio supporters recently e-mailed me with almost the identical story.

Even though I've never been in the military, I've heard many times about especially courageous American military men called LRRP's (pronounced "lerps" - an acronym for Long Range Reconaissance Patrol or something similar). Our Ohio friend, a man named Kevin Mills, was an infantry medic in Viet Nam. Kevin went to hear Chris Blodgett speak on his tour in April, 2000 when he went to Ohio.

Kevin later wrote in to me saying that Chris told him so many obvious falsehoods about his military background that it was clear that Blodgett was a "pathological liar." Mr. Mills related that during that tour stop in Ohio, Chris told him "the biggest pack of lies about himself in Nam...." (20) When he later sought to relate the information to a couple of other Christian Media adherents that had a military background, he was made to feel like a traitor for suggesting that something was wrong with this man's assertions.

Once again, Chris could very easily dispel any of this information with some documentation of his military assignment. It is my understanding that special forces units all have badges or other emblems of distinction. Indeed, one group is known for their black berets, and another for their green berets. They all have papers, or medals, or something to indicate what they did. Chris won't produce any of this because it's all just another gigantic lie.

As each lie of the Blodgetts came to light, we realized that we had always heard many carefully crafted reasons that were evidently calculated to cover the lack of documentation. For instance, I remember Chris telling me the military always disavowed any of his work because it was so secret and politically sensitive that all his military papers never mentioned his assignments.

I also remember him telling me there was a big mix up at the movie studio when he worked on the feature film Outbreak, and his name was "accidentally" left off of all the technical credits. In fact, at this point, we can't be sure that anything either Chris or Sharon told us was true.

For example, Sharon was repeatedly represented as having been a policewoman in the Pahrump area. Chris made a point of repeatedly telling us how her "martial arts" abilities were so outstanding that she trained other policemen in the department. He specifically mentioned this on the air more than once.

Mr. Kirk Vitto of the District Attorney's office for Nye County tells another story. It seems that Kirk knew Sharon even before she married Chris. Mr. Vitto states that Sharon was a juvenile probation officer, not a policewoman! There's a very big difference between a probation officer, and a policewoman! (21) Although she apparently was working for a police department in the East before moving to Nevada, we were told she was a policewoman in Nevada - not a probation officer. This information plainly demonstrates that she is a complete liar just like her husband.

Kirk Vitto had more to say on Chris as well. When Chris and Sharon first came to stay with us in 1999, they told us that Chris' ex-wife was unfairly pursuing him for child support. They said that because Chris had exposed the sins of the Newhope Fellowship, an elder from the church (Kirk Vitto) that worked in the District Attorney's office was using this case as a tool to persecute Chris.

I can now demonstrate that this was yet another lie. I personally spoke to Kirk Vitto, who is the individual in question and got another story. Mr. Vitto indicated that Chris' former wife had already started proceedings against Chris to collect on child support payments that Chris had failed to make. This support was for the children that Chris Blodgett had abandoned. I confirmed this with the Family Support Division there in Nevada. (22)

Chris had come to Kirk Vitto as a friend from the same church to see if Kirk could help him in evading the prosecution! Kirk said he would look into the case, but would not shirk his duties as an Assistant District Attorney - even for a friend. Chris and Sharon had characterized this as a complete "betrayal" by Mr. Vitto.

Chris told us the same story he apparently told the court. He claimed his own father was actually the father of his two children! One would think a simple paternity test would settle the matter. The fact is, according to Joyce Moore of the Family Support Division in Las Vegas, at the time of the court order at the end of 1998, Chris Blodgett owed $6,385 in back child support payments. (23)

Less than a year later, he fled Nevada and came to Oregon. As previously noted, when Chris came to Oregon he had approximately $14,000 in cash with him.

Furthermore, the Nevada authorities are very interested in locating Chris Blodgett as they don't seem to have a present address on him. In fact, there are quite a few creditors that would also like to speak to Chris and Sharon Blodgett. According to the Bank of America and the Master Card people, Sharon owed them $10,723.06 three months after they moved to Oregon and forgot to tell the bank where they were moving. The Discover card people have a similar story - except they're looking for over $12,000. Not to be left out, the Chase Bank also wants to know why their credit card was run up to $11,165. As I previously mentioned, the Ford Motor Company finally got their sport utility vehicle back, but there's a little matter of thousands of dollars of back payments.

It seems that all of these creditors and legal authorities were encircling and closing in on the Blodgetts just about the time "the Lord" told them to approach me and join themselves to the work at Christian Media. The truth is, it's now clear that they needed to flee Nevada so they could evade the consequences of their previous bad faith actions. The Bible says "God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (24) One might think that as "ministers of the Gospel," Chris and Sharon Blodgett would be aware of this fundamental truth.

I previously related the story of how Francis and Elizabeth Steffan had volunteered to help Chris put up his satellite dish. There was another aspect to this incident. Earlier, Sharon had thrown what Frank described as "a tantrum" because she didn't have any television to watch, and it didn't look like the satellite was going to be installed that day.

Frank and Liz both echoed statements that had also been told to us by Ralph and Kathy Haaff. These comments were related to donations given during the tour. The Blodgetts told both couples that they had separated the funds they received during the tour. Part of the monies were set aside for Christian Media to pay for the tapes, books, and other items sold during the tour, and part of the monies were set aside as donations to Chris and Sharon's ministry. This was not our arrangement.

The fact is, when an organization sponsors a tour (or any other project for that matter), the standard format is for the sponsor to recoup all front monies before any income is paid to the speaker. There are many corollaries. In the record industry, for example, the record label recoups all production expenditures before the artist begins receiving royalties.

Because the Christian Media ministry financed the entire tour for the Blodgetts, all revenue (including gifts) was supposed to come back to the ministry to be applied against the initial budget for the project. For example, 20,000 postcards were written, graphically laid out, printed, and mailed to support the tour. The postage alone on 20,000 postcards was $4,000.

Chris specifically told Francis and Elizabeth that they had received direct donations from the tour that they kept. This correlates directly with what Ralph and Kathy Haaff told us about the Blodgetts' Michigan stop. They wrote that Sharon told the Haaff's "that James and Chris' monies have to be kept separate." (25)

Whether or not this sounds like a reasonable arrangement is irrelevant. This was not the financial arrangement made with the Blodgetts for the tour. Like the previous regional tour, all revenues were scheduled to go against the cost of the room, the travel, the meals, the advertising, and the postage before the speaker earns revenue. All of the speaker's costs are covered, of course. In short, why should Christian Media lose $5,000 in order to promote Chris Blodgett's tour while Chris and Sharon made money as a result of the ministry's financial expenditures?

We did not know that this was the case until after Chris Blodgett had left the ministry. In effect, during their 2000 national tour, the Blodgett's stole funds that belonged to Christian Media.

During a dinner that occurred at the home of Francis Steffan approximately a year ago, Chris and Sharon were both busy at work with their seemingly never-ending quest to bad-mouth Susan and myself. On this particular occasion, they went a little too far as both Frank and Elizabeth were shocked at the words they heard.

As they discussed Christian Media and life in their "unlivable" cabin, Chris apparently stated that my wife Susan is "a blonde bitch with an evil spirit." (26) Both Frank and Elizabeth later told us they were completely stunned by this statement. More criticisms followed, and as usual, they were focused on Susan. Interestingly enough, after I kicked Chris Blodgett off the air and called him on the telephone to tell him never to show his face at these premises again, I confronted him with his comment concerning my wife. Predictably, Chris denied saying this and tried to tell me that Frank himself had said it! Apparently, he's suggesting that Elizabeth is lying also. Thus everyone is lying except Chris and Sharon in their view.

Interestingly, the "blonde bitch" criticism was particularly offensive to Elizabeth. Frank was more concerned with the apparent attitude that anyone that opposes Chris and Sharon is prima facie evidence that person has an "evil spirit." Indeed, it's the perfect offensive weapon of slander. You disagree with me, therefore using the authority of the Lord, I declare you have an evil spirit. The Bible speaks of the use of this type of abusive tactic as a "cloak of maliciousness." (27)