Taxmen claim church that ‘pot’ built

Press, 14 July 1982, Page 9

Taxmen claim church that ‘pot’ built

NZPA Horseshoe Beach, Florida In rural Dixie Count) people call it the church that marijuana built. But revenue agents say that no matter who built it. they’ve got it now. The Internal Revenue Service has slapped a lien on My House of Prayer, an interdenominational Protestant church that was built several years ago by Floyd Bubba Capo, aged 49. a fisherman, who is now serving a 38-year sentence for marijuana smuggling. Capo, says he got the SUS3D.ODO (5NZ40.500) to build the church from grateful smugglers with a note that said: “Bubba, build your church.” But the future of the church is in doubt since the Revenue Service issued its lien, which is designed to recoup $l.l million the United States Government says that Capo owes in income taxes. The pastor of the 69-mem-ber congregation, the Rev. Maxine Birchfield, is confident that God will protect the church. "God has placed us here for a purpose,” she said yesterday, “If the I.R.S. comes up with a figure, I think God will bless us so we can buy the building.” The building.is a few miles from Horseshoe Beach, near a remote strip of the Gulf of Mexico shoreline where shiploads of marijuana have arrived from Colombia. Money for the church, Capo says, was left in a paper bag on his back porch by men from St Petersburg who appreciated his silence when they were caught smuggling marijuana into Dixie County nine years ago.