What is clear is that leaders of the temple took out a $645,000 loan in the temple’s name — and that since certain community members started asking questions about what happened to that money, they’ve been getting no-trespass orders signed by Wat Lao Buddhavong’s two top monks.
Beyond that, almost all the facts are disputed. Who is sending the orders. What the money was used for. Who’s in charge of a religious institution that has been central to the Laotian immigrant community in the Washington area and across the country since the 1980s.
The temple’s longtime leader is abbot Bounmy Kittithammavanno. But members say the charismatic monk, who draws worshipers from far and wide, is the spiritual head of the temple, while his vice abbot, Phonexay Mingsisouphanh, acts like the CEO.
Several members, including a monk who drove the aging Kittithammavanno to the bank at the abbot’s request, say that Kittithammavanno first learned about the $645,000 loan in this past fall, when he was trying to set up a new account for telephone service at the temple. To do so, he needed the temple’s tax ID number, so he went to the bank to ask for it.
There, a banker mentioned the large loan taken out in the name of the temple. Kittithammavanno, who is in his 80s, was alarmed. He requested bank records from the temple’s account, and turned them over along with other documents he found in the temple’s offices to a cadre of members who set about trying to make sense of the congregation’s finances.
-- Edited by PeaceBeWithUs on Saturday 25th of January 2020 09:53:35 PM
