The Rev. Dr. C.J. Matthews

U.S. District Attorney Steve Dettlebach

From the Metro Desk of The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com)

The Rev. Dr. Charles "C.J." Matthews, senior pastor at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church in Cleveland, has been charged with failing to pay $90 thousand in IRS income taxes collected by the mega church between Oct. 2005 and Jan. 2007 on the wages of church employees, and Black leaders for the most part are remaining mum over it. And U.S. District Attorney Steve Dettlebach, who brought the charges, is said to have befriended and hung out with the popular pastor who has led the church for 23 years and is a respected Civil Rights leader, only to have turned on him later, sources say.

Also president of the United Pastors in Mission, greater Cleveland's most powerful venue of Black clergy, Matthews, 60, was urged by group members not to step down, but told them at a recent meeting that he is being charged and that "I will be okay if I have to go away."

Prosecutors say Matthews, who was not indicted but charged as an information because of his cooperation with federal prosecutors, allegedly used the collected tax monies that he allegedly did not hand over to the IRS for personal expenses, an allegation elevated because he and his wife  own a home worth more than $500 thousand in Solon, a Cleveland suburb. And it does not help that Mt. Sinai, with a congregation of 4,000 at one time, sits at 75th St. and Woodland Ave. across from King Kennedy Estates Housing Projects in the heart of the ghetto, though it is not unusual for prominent Black preachers of major metropolitan cities to live flamboyant lifestyles.

Matthews has friends, and enemies too, angering the leadership team at the Call and Post Newspaper, Cleveland's Black press, after he and the Rev Dr. Marvin McMickle, senior pastor at Cleveland's prominent Antioch Baptist Church, publicly challenged an editorial cartoon that depicts State Sen Nina Turner (D-25), a Cleveland Democrat, as an Aunt Jemima.

The dispute with Turner and Call and Post officials, namely associate publisher and editor Connie Harper and general counsel George Forbes, who is also the long time president of the Cleveland NAACP, began brewing after the lawmaker, as the only prominent Black politician in the county, joined Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason and the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper in pushing Issue 6, a government reform measure that Cuyahoga County voters overwhelmingly approved in 2009.

“They gave all the power to one White man. They gerrymandered the districts and Nina Turner was the only Black they consulted,” State Rep. Barbra Boyd (D-11) told The Kathy Wray Coleman Online News Blog.Com at the time the controversy was at its hottest moment and following FitzGerald's election last year. And Forbes took on Mason prior to the adoption of Issue 6 saying he could not show how Blacks would benefit with Mason saying that Issue 6 is needed because of public corruption by some of the ousted elected officials and accusing the local NAACP president of being "disingenuous."

Matthews, who has dined with presidents and other prominent movers and shakers, has a long list of community service also as a member of the the Greater Cleveland Partnership and the National Baptist Convention U.S.A Inc, chairman of Cleveland NAACP's Black Leadership Commission on Aids and board member of the local chapter of the United Way, among other activities. He is expected to plead guilty to the charges and faces prison, but some Blacks say that while he should pay the monies owed, he should not be incarcerated because he has been unfairly targeted.