Friends,
The following is an account of what our family has been going through since May 2, 2022. I am certain that part of this is a spiritual attack. This has been the most traumatic experience our family has ever had to try to navigate. What happened to us is very shocking and unbelievable, but it is the reality we are living in. Please pray for us! We need prayer now more than ever!!!
If you are unaware, our family moved to Romania June 29, 2021, one year to the day after a terrible car accident when God miraculously spared David, Gwen, and Timothy’s lives. We had been living in Romania learning the language and culture in preparation to do children’s ministry. We had begun reaching out to the children in the community where we lived, but after 9 months in Romania, we wanted to visit our loved ones in the USA. We arrived in the USA on March 31 and had a great whirlwind visit with family, friends, and prayer partners. We celebrated Easter with family and went to several medical appointments while we were in the USA. We had planned to leave the USA from the Portland Oregon Airport and begin our journey back home to Romania on May 2, 2022.
We had 10 pieces of luggage to take back to the mission field. We had stocked up on many things that are unavailable in Romania. The airline let us know that our daughter, who had just turned 12, needed a Covid test in order to get off the plane at our layover in Germany. So I ran with my daughter to get her tested, paid $200 for a rapid PCR test at
the airport, and hurried back to the ticketing area. My husband was busy weighing our bags and adjusting them so that none of them would be overweight. I noticed some men were speaking with my husband, but I assumed that they were with the airline. Then two tall men came up to me and told me that they were FBI agents and were arresting my husband. They showed me their badges. They would not tell us what they were arresting him for! I said, “What are you arresting him for? What has he done?” But they wouldn’t tell me. I said in a loud voice, “He has done nothing wrong!” The FBI agents smugly said that the children and I could still get on the airplane. I replied, “WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE WITHOUT MY HUSBAND!!!” I asked the agents for a business card, but they said that they didn’t have any. Then they took him away. There were 6 people who took my husband away when he was arrested. As they were taking him, I yelled, “I love you husband!!!” My children began to cry. I told them not to be afraid, that daddy had done nothing wrong and the Lord was with us!
After waiting in utter confusion and terror for at least 2 hours, family were able to come and help us. We went to my brother’s house. That night, my husband was able to call from the jail. He told me that he was being accused of security fraud. I said, “Security fraud?!? What is that???” He said that they were accusing him of insider trading. The next day, after being in custody for more than 24 hours, he was released after appearing before a judge with a public defender representing my husband. Praise God, David continues to be with our family and does not have to wait for trial in jail. 67% of people who are incarcerated in the USA have not yet been to trial.
On May 4, 2022 we discovered that all of our bank accounts had been frozen. All of them! Even our children’s savings accounts… Our Chase bank account was overdrawn by $199,999,999,616.61, which means that either someone in the government or at the bank decided to overdraw our account by $200,000,000,000.00 but we had about $300 in that account which is why the overdrawn amount is not an even number. The other accounts were frozen but not overdrawn by crazy, ridiculous amounts. Our accounts are still all frozen, and they have even frozen most of our credit cards… By God’s grace, David was able to open a bank account in July so he can get paid for his job. Our finances continue to be limited, but the Lord has faithfully provided for everything that we have needed! Through this experience, our eyes have been opened to the incredible corruption and injustice that takes place daily in the US justice system…
In order to be allowed to drive a vehicle in the USA, you must pass a written test and a driving test. No training whatsoever is required to be allowed to trade stocks! It would be like if someone told you that you could drive without any training or testing whatsoever. There would also be no road signs to tell you about any traffic laws. You tried to learn as much as you could about driving and had read several books written by famous racecar drivers about the techniques that they used. You knew that sometimes people got in trouble for reckless driving, and you had heard on the news that some people even went to jail for reckless driving, but no one had ever explained to you what that meant exactly. You were a careful driver and had never gotten in any accidents, so you believed that everything you were doing was legal. Then one day, a police officer pulls you over for speeding and arrests you for reckless driving. You had no idea that there was a speed limit or that you were breaking it, but that doesn’t matter to the courts. Not only do you get in trouble for the day you were pulled over, you also are in trouble for everytime that you have ever broken the speed limit. The system does not care one bit that you did not know what the speed limit was… My husband did not know that he was doing anything that could be considered illegal, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the courts. The USA government wants to put my husband in jail and take everything that we own up to $12,000,000. They can even confiscate the 2 houses in Nampa that we have had for many years and garnish his wages for the rest of his life… Through this horrible experience, we have learned that the US justice system is not fair or just!
By God’s grace, we have found a good attorney here in Idaho. The charges are coming out of the southern district of New York and our attorney is coordinating with an attorney in New York. We are still in shock and do not understand how this happened! Most people have no idea what to do or how to respond when they hear about our situation. What I tell people is that they should treat us like an immediate family member died. The level of trauma we are experiencing is the same as if a family member had died. In situations like this the natural response people have is fear and judgment. Please remember who you know my husband to be, and who you know our family to be! Thank you for praying for us! We need prayer now more than ever! We know that God is in control! We know that He loves us!!! We know that the Lord will fight for us!!! We know that the Truth will set us free!!! We pray that God will be glorified through all of this!!! But the time in between when our faith becomes sight, that is a difficult time!
God bless you ~ Gwendolyn Stone
If you are interested in learning more about the current state of the US justice system, I invite you to watch and read the following.
http://www1.cbn.com/tv/1536974774001/overcriminalization-making-us-a-nation-of-felons
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/overcrim
https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/heritage-explains/overcriminalization
Well done. Thank you for comparing it to driving a car – really helped me understand what has been happening.
Prayers from Romania
Thank you so much for the update. I am SO glad to hear how positive the facility is. I had no idea there were places like that and am SO glad that is where David is. We will simply continue to pray for you all. Everyone makes mistakes but the worst is when we get into trouble and we are surprised we had actually messed up. May God, the Comforter be your portion.