Chapter 37

Fleecing the Flock

C. Thomas Patten—Oakland

Carl Thomas Patten was born in Tennessee, where his father was a bootlegger who was often in trouble with the law. The apple does not fall far from the tree and the younger Patten, who bragged that the “C.” stood for “Cash,” ran scams, cons, and other criminal activity. In 1935, Patten was arrested for transporting stolen automobiles across state lines.

Patten slipped through the jaws of justice and later that year married twenty-two-year-old Wilma “Bebe” Harrison, who had been an evangelical preacher since the age of seventeen. Together, they toured America, preaching in revival style out of their car and collecting whatever money they could squeeze out of the migrant workers and rural bumpkins who came to hear the word of the Lord.

Making their way to Southern California, the Pattens landed on the stairs of Aimee Semple McPherson’s Four Square Church. McPherson’s popularity had been tarnished by her 1926 false kidnapping and sex scandal; however, that did not stop her true believers, who continued to donate heavily to her church. The couple learned at the knee of McPherson, and they began to wear flowing robes, to use radio to broadcast their services, and to accept nonwhites and non-Christians into their flock. They also learned how to separate their congregation from its money.

After learning all of the Reverend McPherson’s tricks, the couple drove north in 1944 to set up camp in Oakland, which was bursting at its seams as uneducated Okies, southern whites, and African Americans moved there to work for the war effort. Towns like Richmond and Vallejo became cities overnight, as Henry Kaiser’s shipyard produced at full capacity, launching a ship a day.

Using paid advertisements on the radio and in the newspapers, Bebe Patten’s preaching started to attract multitudes of weak-minded and gullible people. For anyone who did not have a radio or was illiterate, mobile loudspeakers on trucks drove through East Bay neighborhoods, advertising salvation at Bebe’s satin shoes. Money rolled in from the sold-out revival shows at Oakland’s Elm Tabernacle. Bebe and Cash went on to rent the larger Oakland Women’s City Club. When that space became too small, they rented the eight thousand-seat Oakland Arena.

Cash spent the church donations on two hundred pairs of custom made cowboy boots, nine luxury automobiles, and a cabin cruiser. The chubby-faced con man had a fondness for loud shirts and cowboy suits. While Bebe preached about salvation, Cash worked the crowd, literally shaking down the congregation, physically threatening them with God’s wrath if they did not give more money.

Cash was an experienced con-artist and he knew well how to get everything he could while the pickings were hot. He persuaded some of his followers to write the church into their wills, turn over stocks and bonds, sign over promissory notes, and give the Pattens control over their worldly possessions.

Later in 1944, the Pattens came up with another scam. They opened the Oakland Bible Institute at 1428 Alice Street in downtown Oakland and claimed that it was accredited by the University of California. Bebe, who bought a Ph.D. from a diploma mill, became the school’s president. Eventually, the Pattens would own four corporations: The Oakland Bible Church, the Oakland Bible Institute, Patten College and Seminary, and the Patten Foundation. In two short years, Bebe and Carl went from selling their car’s spare tire to buy soup to being millionaires.

The Pattens had looked to 1950 as a banner year as the money kept pouring into their various foundations and schools, but cracks were forming in their scam. Money was supposed to go to church-run projects like a Lake County orphanage and a new temple, neither of which was ever built. Gordon Hagglund, a 1947 graduate of Patten Seminary, went to the Contra Costa County district attorney and told him of the Pattens’ scam.

Bebe and Carl were indicted on ten counts of misuse of $20,670 of congregation money. The trial came to order on February 20, 1950, just three weeks after Bebe gave birth to twin daughters. Somehow, the charges of aiding and abetting against Bebe were dropped. Cash was taking the fall.

Costa Contra County judge Charles Wade Snook presided, with Richard Chamberlain and Cecil Mosbacher working as assistant district attorneys. Mosbacher would go on to become the first female judge in Contra Costa County history. The Pattens had four attorneys. The courtroom was cleared on the first day, as the Pattens’ followers crowded the courtroom, creating disturbances and shouting “amen.”

The prosecution exposed the Pattens as common flimflam artists who never paid their bills, bullied and tricked their worshipers out of their money, and used their church funds in complicated real estate deals. If Patten would have stopped there, he probably would have gotten away with his con, but the old huckster could not leave a rube alone once he spotted one.

Freeda Borchardt loaned the church almost $8,000. The fifty-two-year-old Borchardt told the court that she had given Patten the money in three different transactions. Gussa Norton gave Patten a $4,000 inheritance check to cash, from which she was to give him a $400 bequest. Patten gave her $232 back and an IOU for the rest of the money. Shipyard worker Elof Hagglund was taken for $4,000, and barber Gustav Rode was bilked out of $2,500. George and May Lewis loaned Patten $3,000 to help buy the City Club Hotel. They had sold their West Virginia property to help out the pastor.

The preachers were accused of raising $30,000, supposedly to make a deposit for a radio station license. An agent from the Federal Communication Commission testified that the FCC does not require a deposit for a broadcasting license.

The Pattens were portrayed as greedy intimidators who were not beyond shaming the accusers from the pulpit. Carl blatantly wore fancy clothes, drove expensive cars, and often bragged about how he was twice a millionaire. The couple had multiple bank accounts and a twisted web of bad loans and bounced checks. The religious leader bounced two checks for a total of $4,200 at the Palace Club, a Reno gambling establishment. Bebe, who had a fondness for silk gowns and fox furs, had a penchant for not paying her designers.

During the trial, students from Patten College loudly protested outside. The defense presented nineteen witnesses. They were all hazy about what they remembered and were thoroughly discredited by the prosecution. At one point in the proceedings, Carl suffered a heart attack and spent the rest of the trial at an Oakland hospital. He arrived in court to hear the verdict wearing silk pajamas, cared for by uniformed nurses. He was found guilty of grand theft and sentenced to five to fifty years in San Quentin Prison, just across the San Francisco Bay.

Carl Thomas Patten was released from prison after three years. Under the conditions of his parole, he was banned from any business involving Bebe’s church. The old con man knew when the con was over and lived the rest of his life in luxury, behind closed gates, until he died of a heart attack on May 12, 1958.

Bebe went on to great heights as an evangelist. She received numerous awards and honors, and she became an avid supporter of Israel. Her daily thirty-minute radio broadcast, The Shepherd Hour, aired from 1951 to 1987. Her television program, The Bebe Patten Hour, was aired from 1976 to 2004. Her periodical, The Trumpet Call, is still being published. Bebe died on January 25, 2004, at the age of ninety-one.