Kent Hovind: Political Prisoner? – Chuck Baldwin

Kent Hovind is a creation-science evangelist and Baptist minister who has already served eight years of a ten-year prison sentence for alleged tax evasion. Kent has a master’s degree in education. He founded and operated Creation Science Evangelism and has traveled extensively presenting creation-science lectures. He has debated evolutionists in over one hundred debates across the country. Kent also operated Dinosaur Adventure Land in Pensacola, Florida. This was a very popular creation-science museum/theme park. Kent also produced scores of videos on the subject of creation-science that have circled the globe and been translated in over thirty languages. Many people affectionately refer to Kent as “Dr. Dino.” He and his wife have three children; and all three of their children (all grown) worked alongside of him in the ministry.

Kent and I were college classmates for one year in Michigan. I was a sophomore when Kent transferred to the school from Illinois. I transferred colleges after that year. Kent stayed and graduated from the college in Michigan. After graduation in 1975, my wife and I moved to Pensacola, Florida, to begin our ministerial work. Some years later, Kent and his family also moved to Pensacola. So, I’ve known Kent a long time.

Kent considered his ministry a church and the people who worked for him as missionaries. He did not incorporate under the 501c3 non-profit organization status. Of course, the Internal Revenue Code states that churches are not required to do so; that, as a church, they automatically have tax-exempt status. Accordingly, Kent believed his ministry was tax-exempt.

Nevertheless, in 2004, IRS agents raided Kent’s home and ultimately brought multiple counts of tax-evasion-type charges, including “structuring,” against him. “Structuring” means deliberately making cash deposits or withdrawals of just under the supposed reporting level of ten thousand dollars. (Egad! God forbid that the IRS not know the details of our banking transactions.) In 2006, Kent went to trial and was convicted on all counts and sentenced to ten years in federal prison. He has been there ever since.

But now the story gets bizarre. Federal prosecutors are currently bringing charges of mail fraud against Kent for using the mail system from inside prison to challenge the lien that the IRS placed upon his property. And, are you ready for this? They want Kent to serve an additional twenty to one hundred years in prison. Obviously, even if he received twenty years, this amounts to a life sentence.