Finger of God: Trouble in Paradise - The Star

Almost a year later, Joseph Hellon, Esther Arunga and Quincy Timberlake seem to have had a
massive fallout

By Grace Kerongo

It's almost a year after the controversy that snared ex-TV anchor Esther Arunga, saxophonist Joseph Hellon and rapper Quincy Timberlake hit the proverbial fan.

Esther Arunga shocked many fans when she made the decision to dump her fiance just weeks ahead of their planned wedding, under advice from leaders of the Finger of God cult.

She then went ahead to quit her job at KTN - a job she had described on her Facebook page as, "The best job ever, I love my job"

Esther then refused to go back home even after the police were called by her concerned parents to get her from Runda, where musician Joseph Hellon, the Church leader lives.

(Veronica Agape, Joseph Hellon, his wife Wagikuyu and Quincy Timberlake's former bodyguard Joel Masiga on Tuesday when they visited the Star office.)

At the time Hellon told the world with Esther by his side that she was old enough to make her own choices.

The controversy caused quite a social commotion with many people thinking the trio had lost their senses.

Now Hellon has come out to speak about the controversy describing the whole affair as "a well-planned, elaborate con carried out on me, Arunga, and the Finger Of God congregation."

Quincy meanwhile is keeping silent and refusing to comment on the affair. Attempts to reach him failed when he refused to respond to calls and messages.

The musician turned spiritual leader spoke in detail about his interaction with Quincy, and when it finally dawned on him that he had been had.

Hellon first met Quincy in childhood. Quicy's family lived 100 metres from Hellon's mother's Kokuro village home, located a few kilometers from Awendo Town in Nyanza Province. Quincy was raised by his grandparents Joel and Rael Madanji.

The two were deskmates since class two at Kokuro Primary School. Back then, Quincy was registered in the school as Joginda Singh. Since then, Quincy has gone by many aliases.

When he was in Kanda King's band he was a Congolese known as Dezato, and to the late rapper Krupt, he was Fizzle Dogg. Now with Hellon he goes by Quincy Wambita Zuma Timberlake.
In an exclusive interview this week, Hellon came clean about all the too good to be true deals that he was sucked into Quicy's orbit by.

The first deal that grabbed Hellon's attention was a contract with Pepsi Cola, the deal was further sweetened by an acting deal with Hollywood actor Mel Gibson and finally an interview on Larry King Live's show on CNN.

"When Quincy came to me he told me he had a contact at the Pepsi Cola Company in the USA and they would be interested in sponsoring my jazz career. Immediately, I started receiving phone calls from people saying they were Pepsi's managers for Africa. I could see the number was South African for real and so I believed."

Even when soon afterwards Quincy went to prison and was released on bail, after a case of obtaining money through false pretence, Hellon stuck by him.

"When he got out, I told him 'Look, let's get on with Pepsi Cola deal' and he told me all these court cases were slowing the deal down. That is when I started thinking there must be something wrong.

"The various people who called never wanted to meet in person. When after a while nothing happened, it occurred to me that the many Pepsi Cola managers, and others who claimed to be Larry King and Mel Gibson had been inventions of Quincy Timberlake all along.

"If it wasn't for the way things happened early last year (the raids and court cases) we would have discovered this a lot earlier.

"It was hardly a month after meeting him that we got raided and arrested and now we have been saddled with the legal aspect of everything. We have bills and lawyers to pay and our names to clear.

"So basically, attention shifted from him. That gave him a lot of time to work with whomever his accomplices were to keep us deceived. And I do admit we were fully deceived."

The final confrontation leading to the breakup between Hellon and Quicy took place on December 8 last year.

"When I asked him about all the deals that never happened, he became upset and said he was leaving.

"One of the reasons I had believed him initially was because Quincy never hid details of his former life or on how he earned his money.

"He convinced us he needed help. He wanted to be part of the church as well," explained Hellon.

Hellon claims that Quincy somehow managed to hack into his e-mail and pretend he was the televangelist Benny Hinn and order Hellon's Finger of God church to do various things.

"Finger of God had been partners with the Benny Hinn ministries for many years. And Benny Hinn used to send us letters every month. How Quincy was able to somehow hack into that mail to the extent that instead of getting mail from Benny Hinn we got it from him, we don't know.

The wording, format and message was the same.

"We were oblivious, thinking we were still receiving original messages from Benny Hinn. We only realised this was not the case towards mid-last year."

During his 12-month stay with Quincy at his Runda and later Kitisuru homes, Hellon said he began to notice the "peculiar habits" of his erstwhile friend.

"We started to realise that he regularly destroyed or got rid of his computer hard drives. This got us wondering what is he trying to hide," Hellon said.

After the confrontation with Hellon, Quincy left the house in Kitisuru that Hellon, his wife Wagikuyu, Esther Arunga and a female UN employee friend of theirs shared and he rented a place of his own in New Kitisuru.

Later on December 12 a blog claiming to detail the gang rape of a Finger of God congregation member allegedly posted online by fellow Finger of God member, Veronica Agape. These claims have since been denied by Agape who says she suspects that an imposter posted the blog to hurt Hellon.

Hellon, his wife Wagikuyu and Veronica Agape recorded statements at CID headquarters on Tuesday, in which they threatened to sue Quincy.