Many believe this load of money could be part of the $600,000 that was stolen from the church’s safe in 2014.

Plumber Finds Cash

You may have heard of the porcelain throne being made from gold, but what about loads of money being stashed behind the toilet? That’s exactly what one plumber said he found inside hundreds of envelopes hiding in the insulation of a restroom wall at Joel Osteen’s Houston megachurch.

During a Thursday appearance on a morning show for the local radio station 100.3 The Bull, the unnamed plumber said he made the discovery on Nov. 10.

“There was a loose toilet in the wall, and we removed the tile,” the man reportedly said during the broadcast. “We went to go remove the toilet, and I moved some insulation away and about 500 envelopes fell out of the wall, and I was like ‘Oh wow!’”

“I went ahead and contacted the maintenance supervisor that was there, and I turned it all in,” he added after noting that the envelopes were stuffed with cash and checks. 

Could This Be Missing Money From Seven Years Ago?

Why someone would hide stacks of cash in the restroom of a televangelist’s megachurch isn’t the only question people had regarding this story.

In 2014, $600,000 in cash and checks disappeared from the church’s safe. No arrests were ever made and the investigation remains open to this day, but many now are wondering if the plumber’s findings could be that money.

“Don’t you want to know what happened? I mean they stole the money, but they didn’t get it out of the wall.” The Bull morning host George Lindsey said. “Did they have an accident? You know what I mean? It’s like, why did they never go back? If it’s that money, why did they never go back?” 

No official determination as to whether this money is part of that $600,000 has been made yet. In fact, it’s currently unknown how much money was actually recovered from the envelopes; however, since The Bull’s broadcast, Osteen’s church has backed up the plumber’s account.

“Recently, while repair work was being done at Lakewood Church, an undisclosed amount of cash and checks were found. Lakewood immediately notified the Houston Police Department and is assisting them with their investigation,” a representative told KPRC.

In 2014, Crime Stoppers Houston issued a $25,000 reward for information leading to a suspect’s arrest. While that offer appears to still be active, it is unlikely the plumber will receive it since he only found the money, not information on who committed the crime. 

“He’s the one who found it,” Lindsey noted of the plumber during his broadcast. “If he never had been doing that work behind that toilet, they would have never known that money was there.”

See what others are saying: (NBC News) (CBS Dallas-Fort Worth) (KPRC)

The ruling is a preliminary injunction, meaning the law isn’t fully dead, but the outcome doesn’t look bright for its supporters. 

Judge Blocks Social Media Law

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Texas from enacting a law that would have prevented social media platforms from banning users based on their “viewpoint.”

Gov. Greg Abbott signed the law on Sep. 9 for platforms with at least 50 million active monthly users. Had it not been blocked, the legislation would have gone into effect Thursday. 

The ruling — brought by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman — is similar to a decision made this past June by a different federal judge in Florida, where another law attempting to block social media companies from censoring users was passed by the state. 

Both laws were largely viewed as Republican-led reactions to multiple social media bans against former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 insurrection. A number of Republicans have continually claimed that social media platforms have an anti-conservative bias, and many have taken that a step further by accusing those platforms of stifling free speech.

Wednesday’s block doesn’t signal a definitive end to the Texas law. Instead, Pitman’s order is a preliminary injunction — meaning, at the very least, that it’s on hold until the case against it is over. 

First Amendment Debate

In his decision, Pitman ruled that the First Amendment gives platforms a right to moderate content on their sites.

“This Court is convinced that social media platforms, or at least those covered by [House Bill] 20, curate both users and content to convey a message about the type of community the platform seeks to foster and, as such, exercise editorial discretion over their platform’s content,” he said. 

While adding that he found some of the aspects of the Texas law “prohibitively vague,” he also noted that the law itself — not the social media platforms — violated the First Amendment.

“The platforms have policies against content that express a viewpoint and disallowing them from applying their policies requires platforms to “alter the expressive content of their [message],” Pitman explained. 

See what others are saying: (Texas Tribune) (The Verge) (NBC News)

Among several limitations, collectors cannot message people publicly, must state upfront that they’re pursuing a debt, and must give people an opportunity to opt-out of receiving additional messages through social media.

Debt Collectors Can Now DM

If you’ve suddenly found yourself flooded with more DMs in the last day, it might not be because you’ve become more popular. Instead, it could be because a new federal rule that went into effect Tuesday now allows debt collectors to message people by email, text, and even through direct messages on social media.

Debt collectors will still be subject to several notable limitations.

For example, if they reach out to someone on social media, it has to be through a private message. It can’t be in a public comments section or anything viewable to anyone except the recipient.

Additionally, if they attempt to reach out by adding a recipient as a friend or contact, they must be clear from the start that they’re pursuing a debt. 

Finally, collectors must allow recipients to opt-out of receiving further messages from them on the social media platform they reach out on. 

Collectors Praise the Rule, Others Express Concern

The new rule, which was greenlit by former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger, has largely been met with praise throughout the collection industry. Kraninger, a Trump-appointee who vacated her office during President Joe Biden’s transition, has argued that the rule is intended to “modernize the legal regime for debt collection.”

Essentially, she and debt collectors have contended that texts, email, and social media are now the preferred methods of communication for many people in America.

Many others, particularly those outside the collection industry, are less happy with the new rule. 

“If left unchecked, this expanded access to consumers could very well contribute to new ways to harass struggling consumers,” Michelle Singletary of The Washington Post said.

“I’ve followed this issue for years, and while many companies operate within the law, illegal operations can do a lot of damage to innocent consumers,” she added. “Debt collection isn’t wicked. But it can lead to embarrassing, unethical and illegal tactics.”

For example, Singletary noted that some companies try to collect debts even after they’re no longer legally collectible. 

See what others are saying: (The Washington Post) (Business Insider) (CBS News)