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| Victoria and Joel Osteen |
It looks like someone may have forgotten the power of turning the other cheek.
Sharon Brown, a Continental airlines flight attendant, has filed a lawsuit against Victoria Osteen, the wife of prominent Houston-based, prosperity preacher Joel Osteen. In the civil suit, Brown alleges that Victoria Osteen, who also happens to be co-pastor at her husband’s mega-church, assaulted her during a Dec. 19, 2005 flight from Houston to Vail, Colorado by throwing her against an airplane bathroom door. Brown also alleges Osteen elbowed her in the left breast.
Though Mrs. Osteen was fined some $3,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration for interfering with a crew member during the flight in question, she has vehemently denied all of the charges made by the Continental Airlines attendant. Speaking in her defense, Mrs. Osteen’s attorney Rusty Hardin described the allegations as “absolutely insane” in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.
Still there appears to be more than a little evidence that Victoria Osteen’s actions onboard the flight were less than Christian, so to speak. According to the FAA report filed in respect of the incident, Mrs. Osteen asked another flight attendant to clean a liquid on her first-class seat armrest. When that attendant said she would get another flight attendant, Osteen grabbed a second flight attendant and took her to the seat, the report said. The second attendant said she would call cleaning personnel and headed to the cockpit, the FAA said.
Osteen then followed that attendant and came across Brown, whom she pushed and elbowed in the left breast in an attempt to get to the cockpit, says the report. After attendants asked to have Osteen removed from the plane, she and her family deplaned voluntarily.
Post the unsettling event, Brown claims that she suffers from anxiety and hemorrhoids and saysd her faith was affected. She is also suing Osteen for medical expenses for counseling in addition to pressing for punitive damages amounting to 10 percent of her net worth.
Joel Osteen presides over a 60,000-member congregation and reaches millions more through television, and his best-selling books like Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps To Living At Your Full Potential.
