By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Thursday, May 07, 2026

Larry and Sharon Cook, co-founders of the Real Believers Faith Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, are facing multiple charges from the Minnesota attorney general for allegedly misusing more than $2 million from their church and another nonprofit they allegedly treated as “personal piggy banks.”

The Cooks, along with multiple officers of both the Real Believers Faith Center and the other nonprofit, Les Jolies School of Dance, were named as defendants in a complaint filed by the office of Attorney General Keith Ellison in a Minnesota District Court last month.

“This Complaint exposes brazen and systematic abuse in Minnesota’s charitable sector, where nonprofit organizations intended to serve the public good were instead exploited as personal piggy banks by those entrusted to protect them,” the 48-page lawsuit claims.

“Over the course of years, Defendants diverted more than $2 million in charitable assets from Les Jolies and Real Believers to fund lavish lifestyles, luxury travel, designer goods, and for-profit ventures masquerading under nearly identical names, while pretending to serve their communities.”

The other defendants are listed as Danyale Potts, a director of Les Jolies and Real Believers; Makada Williams, a director and officer of Les Jolies and a director of Real Believers; Sunsearay Washington, a director and officer of Les Jolies and a director of Real Believers; Emily Neuhaus, a director of Les Jolies and a director and officer of Real Believers; and Risheka Remus, a director of Les Jolies.

All the individual defendants are accused of breach of nonprofit director and officer fiduciary duties under the Minnesota Nonprofit Corporation Act. The Cooks are also accused of breach of trust. The church and dance school face organizational charges of violations of the Minnesota Nonprofit Corporation Act and grounds for equitable relief under the Minnesota Nonprofit Corporation Act. The Les Jolies School of Dance is also charged with failure to register and report as a soliciting charitable organization and failure to register and report as a charitable trust.

In addition to starting the church, Larry Cook is noted as the founder of World Class Barbershop and Dream Team Beauty Shop, while his wife is listed on the church’s website as the founder and artistic director of Les Jolies Petites School of Dance. They are also described as jointly owning the Lion’s Den Soul Food Café.

“Through discipleship and innovation, they continue to share their God-given wisdom, encouraging an entrepreneurial mindset rooted in financial literacy and spiritual growth,” the church website states about the couple. “Much of the congregation has become entrepreneurs and homeowners as a result of their ‘Golden Arrows’ teaching, and marriages and families continue to grow stronger through the example they live out daily.”

The image of business success, however, was all a “sham” according to the lawsuit.

“The Defendants concealed their misconduct through sham governance and by creating deliberate confusion between nonprofit and for-profit entities. This pattern of deception and self-dealing strikes at the heart of public trust in charitable organizations,” the filing states.

“The breadth of wrongdoing is staggering: at least $2 million in nonprofit assets was siphoned through cash withdrawals, CashApp payments, and pledged as collateral for risky loans that served no charitable purpose,” it explains. “Defendants not only misused charitable funds, but they operated without basic governance safeguards, failed to maintain tax-exempt status, failed to maintain registration with the AGO, and dissolved a nonprofit mid-investigation without the legally required notice to the AGO in an attempt to evade oversight.”

In 2022, the church reported that it had purchased a gas station and named it the Lion’s Den, but according to the lawsuit, “In reality, Real Believers never owned the gas station.”

The lawsuit alleges that more than $1.3 million of Real Believers’ charitable assets were misused between February 2018 and October 2024 to pay for hotels and luxury goods. It also alleges that approximately $800,000 of Les Jolies’ charitable assets were misused from April 2018 through June 2024.

While splurging the funds of the two nonprofits, the pastor and his wife reported none of it to the Internal Revenue Service.

“Their actions reflected their consciousness of their own wrongdoing: all actors asserted the Fifth Amendment in response to nearly every question posed by the AGO; and the Cooks’ failed to report their illicit gains to taxing authorities,” the lawsuit states. “These acts constitute flagrant violations of Minnesota’s nonprofit, charitable solicitation, and charitable trust laws — as well as a betrayal of the communities that the parties were supposed to serve.”

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastors-allegedly-misused-over-2-million-from-nonprofits-ag.html