TRANSCRIPT:
Tom DeVocht had a pretense about him, constantly. This was this smarmy, PR’y type of appearance that “I know what I’m doing, I know what I’m doing on construction, I know what I’m doing on management.” He had no clue whatsoever and that became very, very evident when the construction projects went spiraling out of control and the financial irregularities mounted up and he was caught on lies. It was all a façade, the entire time.
Tom DeVocht intentionally ignored Church policy on finances. He thought he was above the law, literally, and would make agreements, commitments of Church finances and funds without any authorization from the authorized sources and he thought he was above the law. And when caught out on such he would lie, absolutely, completely.
He wouldn’t get budgets approved, he wouldn’t get planning approved, he would do cost overruns and authorize them and yet bills would be coming in and he would cover them up. Again, he was a financial nightmare.
Tom DeVocht would cut corners any way he could to quote unquote save money but ultimately it doubled, sometimes tripled the cost. He would get vendors who weren’t up to the standard of where they needed to be or weren’t expertise in the field and he would get them to do the job. The job was a disaster. He’d have to pay them and it had to be taken down and redone because it was absolutely shoddy work but that was his modus operandi.
He would cover up that he had these cost overruns and financial irregularities and made commitments and he would intentionally cover these things up, delay them, hold them back and would create major situations for the Church because the creditors would be calling: “Why aren’t you paying the bills?” and they didn’t even know about it because of the withheld nature from Tom DeVocht.
When you talked to him you actually wouldn’t know “Was this guy lying to me right now” because his propensity and constant lying was infamous and he was trying … everything he would talk about there would be a twist or a lie. In fact, he admitted once about this fact of “I’ll lie if I can get away with it and that’s the only time I get in trouble is when I can’t get away with it.” And that was his life and his operation so it was a very sad state of affairs because the guy was a very unethical, criminal individual with the moral code of a gutter rat.
Tom DeVocht was a violent psychotic. One day I was talking to a group of people and suddenly out of nowhere he jumped on me from a distance, pushed me to the ground and then jumped on top of me, actually breaking two of my ribs.
Tom DeVocht attacked Mike Rinder one night, so violently, it was sickening. He grabbed him and threw him into a bush and as he was falling, Rinder grabbed hold of DeVocht and he stumbled. That really upset DeVocht. He started kicking like a soccer hooligan, kicking Rinder while he was on the ground, in the ribs and in the side, until we pulled him back. People were telling him to stop and we grabbed and told him “Knock it off.”
He came raging into the room one night and headed straight for his wife, yelling at her, grabbed her by the hair, knocked her over and started dragging her down the hallway until he was stopped by several people. He was a complete psychotic.
