One of the stars of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” Mary Cosby — along with her husband and their Pentecostal church — is suing two executives of their church’s business arm, accusing them of embezzling millions of dollars from the company and the church for years.
Mary and Robert Cosby and their Faith Temple Pentecostal Church filed a lawsuit Wednesday in 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City against United Security Financial Inc. — the for-profit business wholly owned by the church — and two of its officers, Annie L. Johnson and Shawn Turner.
The Cosbys and Faith Temple are seeking damages totaling nearly $6.3 million dollars.
In the complaint filed Wednesday, the Cosbys and Faith Temple also accuse Johnson, USF’s president, and Turner, the company’s secretary, of intimidating USF employees, forging Robert Cosby’s signature and using church funds for personal use.
Attempts to contact representatives for Johnson and Turner Wednesday were unsuccessful.
The lawsuit identifies Robert Cosby as Faith Temple’s bishop and president, and Mary Cosby as the church’s vice president, first lady and evangelist.
In one part of the lawsuit, Johnson is accused of taking title in her name of a church-owned radio station, and in 2017 starting to dismantle the station, demolishing the transmission tower and canceling the station’s FCC license. The complaint says Johnson in 2020 transferred the station’s property — worth more than $4.3 million at the time — to her son, who sold it to a third party, with the proceeds going back to Johnson.
Johnson is also accused in the complaint of “comingling” funds, using a Faith Temple account to fund a USF mortgage on a property in Indiana that Johnson’s husband sold to his cousin. That mortgage, for $173,000, was never repaid to Faith Temple, the complaint says — and the total payoff, with interest, amounted to $421,912.40.
The lawsuit also accuses Johnson of abusing USF employees and Faith Temple representatives “with intimidation, threats, verbal abuse, racial degradation, and physical abuse.” According to the complaint, Johnson “repeatedly” told USF workers to cash the company’s checks and give her the money, which she said would be given to Faith Temple — but was instead held by Johnson for personal use. The lawsuit claims at least $350,000 was taken that way, in what the complaint calls “a form of money laundering.”
One accusation involves a loan Robert Cosby signed for $119,000 in August 2005 to secure a property east of Ensign Peak, a loan that was believed to have been paid off through a refinancing in October 2006. An audit, the complaint said, found that Johnson continued to make payments from November 2006 to November 2018, from the Cosbys’ personal checking account, which Johnson controlled.
The final check to pay off the loan, according to the complaint, was sent from a company Turner owned to a USF account that was “used for personal gain.” The lawsuit says $126,611.10 was paid after the Cosbys believed the loan was paid off.
The complaint says a second mortgage on the same property, for $99,217, was made in October 2008 after Johnson forged Robert Cosby’s signature. The lawsuit accuses Johnson of threatening the notary public into notarizing the faked signature. Johnson is further accused of paying $76,448.40 on the mortgage from the Cosbys’ personal funds — but that the defendants later claimed “there has not been a single payment made to this Mtg.”
Turner, the complaint says, “provided a payoff amount of $137,475.35 with no explanation of how this was determined.” The Cosbys didn’t learn of the second mortgage until last December, the complaint says.
Also in the complaint, Johnson is accused of funneling “sacred tithes and offerings” from Faith Temple’s congregants to herself, to pay her American Express bill and other personal expenses. The lawsuit claims a ledger was discovered in July that documented, in Johnson’s handwriting, payments made to Johnson totaling $90,670.32.
On “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City,” Mary Cosby is known for her honest, sometimes biting, opinions and her love of fashion. Cosby returned to full-time status on the show this year. In the season 5 premiere that aired Wednesday, she’s seen arriving in a Dolce & Gabbana coat at a party where she parsed the difference between “couture” and “costume” with new Housewife Bronwyn Newport — who was wearing a $15,000, red heart-shaped Saint Laurent fur jacket.
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