"How Many Say Amen?"

Big, fat-faced C. Thomas Patten was an evangelist in fancy maroon shirts. He wore cowboy hats with brims that were wide, and cowboy boots with toes that were narrow, and his congregation couldn't refuse him a thing. When he asked for money, they gave him money--for a choir loft that went up & down like the stage at Radio City Music Hall, for an electric Escalator that lifted worshipers up to a raised altar. These wonders never appeared, but in seven years in Oakland, Calif. Tom acquired nine cars, 46 suits, 200 pairs of boots and a cabin cruiser. He called himself "God's businessman of the hour" (TIME, March 20).

For four months an Oakland jury listened as disillusioned disciples told of C. (for Cash, he explains unabashedly) Thomas Patten's talents. There was a caterer who said he had given Patten $10,000 ("I never had but a few dollars to give my wife''), a $35-a-week charwoman and her husband who had handed over $2,800.

Tom hired three high-priced lawyers to defend him, and, out on bail, exhorted his followers anew. "When you get your eyes off Jesus, you'll always go down. How many say amen?" shouted Tom. "Amen," screamed the congregation. Student evangelists from his three schools, flashing their bright gold-and-navy sweaters with the big block Ps, passed the collection plate. Weekdays, between sessions in the dingy classrooms over a downtown furniture store, they picketed the courthouse noisily.

Then, in the middle of the long trial, big Tom suffered a heart attack. He listened to closing arguments from a stretcher, picking his nose moodily and getting an occasional shot of morphine from a hovering nurse. Last week an ambulance rushed Tom, resplendent in yellow silk pajamas, from an Oakland hospital to the courtroom to hear the jury's verdict. It found him guilty of stealing $14,750 from his followers (maximum penalty: 50 years). Said Tom Patten, flat on his back but still cocky: "There'll be a battle royal before they get me behind bars."

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