If you click on the highlighted item it will take you to that document.
Click the above link to read the Letter from Vision Forum suspending activities with Creation Expeditions and pulling the movie Raising the Allosaur.
Right to the chase: The jig was up. Doug's credentials for starting up his film festival in October 2004 were based upon that film and the hounds of truth were nipping at Doug's heels. If Doug were to be publicly exposed he could always point to the fact that he had pulled the film from the market.
The Short Version:Worried for Vision Forums reputation, folks around the country as well as a Pastor and others from New York were inquiring of Doug if he was going to warn people about the DeRosa's Allosaur deception as widely as he had promoted them and the deceptive film?
A longer Version: The film was fraudulent in its representations. It relied on other peoples work without giving any credit to them. The film used mock prayers to suggest a more dramatic moment than reality could support. The essence of the film was a lie. In using a question "What happens when a group of Homeschoolers....? the suggestion is that a dinosaur was discovered because of the homeschoolers. This was false. How many of the fathers contacted Doug to tell him of their dissapointment about misrepresenting their expeirience with their children? We do not have a complete count yet. Stand up and be counted.
Lets Talk:
The story behind the November 2002 "Raising the Allosaur" video release and the October 2004 recall is much like a John Grisham novel, including the deception, threats, legal posturing and behind the scenes maneuvering.
The recall of the movie from the market was deafening by its silence. It seemed much like some religious organizations who with great gusto and noise announce their revelations only to find that a change or correction is needed in the revelation, and so they proceed to make the change or correction or reversal as though no one will ever notice. Perhaps adults who fabricate have a left over childhood notion that if they only keep their eyes closed no one will see them in their moment of embarassment and shame or even notice that they have been naughty.
The story surrounds the year 2000 discovery of an Allosaur in western Colorado by homeschool dad, and professional educator, Dana Forbes. By May of 2001 the Forbes entered into a partnership with Field Paleontologist Joe Taylor who owns and is Curator of the Mt Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, Texas. Taylor well known in feild paleontology had the expertise, expeirience, knowledge, and connections to excavate, restore, cast and sell the dinosaur.
Pete DeRosa of Crystal River, Florida became involved when as Joe's guest at the Forbes, he offered his expertise in finance, stating that he had retired from Prudential Financial and was now Field agent for Creation Studies Institute of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Pete offered that as CSI's field agent, he could most likely acquire the financial backing from Creation Studies Institue (CSI). He indicated that if CSI was not interested he could use his financial connections and procure funding from investors he said he knew.
At the time Pete was indeed the CSI Field Director helping with Family Fossil Floats on the Peace River in Florida. Pete and his family did cater meals and help with the physical logistics of the trips. His sons were in training to be leaders of canoe groups as they went down the river to sandy sites rich in fossils.
Creation Studies Institute (CSI) did in fact come on board and provide the financial backing for the project. By September 2001 Tom had invited Answers In Genesis, Ken Ham's ministry based out of Kentucky to join CSI in signing a lease option with the Forbes family for an interest in the dinosaurs, which they did. Tom had told Pete to keep his eyes open when in Colorado with Joe for the Forbes family, as they had already written a letter of interest to D. James Kennedy's Westminster Academy, where Tom taught and based his Creation ministry. The Forbes had written the letter after receiving one of Tom's Fossil Float brochures. Headmaster, Ken Wackes had passed the letter on to Tom.
The first dinosaur excavation was held in September 2001 and was an emergency dig which had to be pulled together due to the two DeRosa boys. We do not know if Pete was complicit in this but it is hard to picture that he was not. His boys are known to always look for his leading and even fear going beyond or outside of it.
The two Ministries CSI and AiG were going to meet at the Forbes and make plans for the following year. However Pete's boys, Peter and Mark had asked permission to go to the site ahead of the others, and Joe had given them permission and instructions. They were not to do any excavating. Their only charge was to clean up the trail up the hillside for the Minstry leaders that would be meeting there the following days. Peter and Mark disregarding Joe Taylor's instructions excavated anyway and had dangerously undercut the Allosaur spinal column. The DeRosas were there as Joe's guest because Pete DeRosa had arranged for his sons to be apprentices to Joe Taylor. This led to their attending their first dinosaur dig with Joe in May 2001 just up the road from the Forbes Ranch. They were taught the basics of the trade by Joe and his team at Dr. Carl Baughs dig site. Joe had for a number of years excavated for Dr Baugh each spring.
The DeRosas bungling turned the AiG/CSI planning meeting at the site into a dig. The undercutting of the Allosaur Spinal column was bad enough and this animal important enough that Joe decided that they had better take it out as where it set on the hillside, it would probably not make it through the winter intact. So twelve feet of the Allosaur were excavated and taken to Joe's museum for restoration. CSI went ahead and financed this excavation. Both CSI and AiG had teams that participated in this September 2001 dig. Joe's expertise along with his team provided the equipment and know how.
Doug Phillips entered the scene in Ocober 2001 at an ICR Back to Genesis Conference in Tampa, Florida. Tom DeRosa (no relation to Pete DeRosa) proposed a CSI sponsored dinosaur dig to Doug at his request. Doug accepted Tom's proposal and began advertising the CSI sponsored dig in his VF catalog that came out within weeks of the Tampa conference.
Confusion reigned among the parties and the common thread for that confusion was Pete DeRosa. As we have studied the documentation all parites were not given the same information. At the time CSI considered Pete their agent and bound by the AiG/CSI/Forbes lease which Pete had acted as agent in negotiations with the Forbes to secure for CSI. The Forbes contend that while they knew Pete was part of CSI, they also considered him an independent agent, able to obtain financial backing for the project if CSI wasnt interested. The problem is Pete did not apprise either AIG or CSI that he had represented himself as both an independent agent as well as an agent of CSI to the Forbes. This would have been very big news to Tom and his board of directors.
In October 2001, Pete wrote a letter on CSI letterhead to a bank outlining the AiG/CSI/Forbes financial projections in order for the Forbes to get financing to purchase the adjacent land needed to finish the Allosaur excavations. Pete signed the document as CSI's field Director. AiG left the project due to misinformation and trust issues with Pete. CSI would leave the project at Pete's recomendation just two months before Vision Forums Tour to the Forbes Ranch. CSI had invested over $15,000 dollars in the project. Presently Pete claims he was not CSI's agent during this time but was working to promote his own ministry, Creation Expeditions. This may work for him in handling the Forbes and Joe Taylor. However CSI may have a problem with Pete's stand as they relied in total on their relationship with Pete as their field agent during all the negotiations on the Forbes fossils.
This story is being told in detail at
www.raisingthetruth.com In order to give an abbreviated account let us jump to May 2002 and the Vision Forum tour. The film "Raising the Allosaur" was filmed during this tour, but the actual excavations occured the September
before and the week
after Vision Forum left. Tom DeRosa still considered Pete DeRosa his field director whom he thought was working to further CSI and their ministry and had asked Pete to fulfill CSI's obligation to Doug Phillips by facilitating the tour. Joe and his team were kept away from the dig site during this tour. Pete told Don Yaeger and Joe that he and Doug were making a film for Ken Ham and Ken did not want Joe or his team in the film. Ken Ham was not their and did not know about the film. Pete had to use the imaginary bad blood he had manufactured between Joe Taylor and Ken because he had not yet manufactured bad blood between Joe Taylor and Doug Phillips. Pete's lies separated brethren. His lies were designed to separate Joe and the Forbes from their rightful earnings. The real reason Joe and his team were turned away from the Forbes site was because the Vision Forum film, Raising the Allosaur was being createdf by Pete and Doug.
After accepting Tom's Dragons Den Dino Dig proposal in October 2001 Doug began working with Pete as Creation Expeditions and promoting the DeRosa boys as professional paleontologists. After the VF group left, Joe Taylor and his team arrived and after several days of digging found the Allosaur skull and raised it from the ground.
It was after the VF news releases that Tom DeRosa, Joe and his team began to understand the deception and the betrayal that had been perpetrated. The Vision Forum film had it's premiere on October 12th, 2002 and was released by mid November.
On the cover of Vision Forum's video "Raising the Allosaur" Doug Phillips claims that his group of home school kids found and raised from the ground the Forbes Allosaur. This is not true. The home school kids and their parents did not raise even one bone from the ground. They certainly did not also excavate a stegasaur and a 120ft. long sauropod all in four days. None of this happened.
Doug gives credit to Dr. Bellamy for finding the skull. The fist sized bone uncovered by Dr. Bellamy was not identifed as a neck vertebrae until days after the VF tour left and the Mt. Blanco team had dug down and uncovered more of the bones. Actually, it was found by Mt. Blanco team member Jordan Hall three days after Belamy left. Did you know that Dr. Bruce Bellamy uncovered the neck vertebrae on the second day of digging during the May 2002 VF Tour, not the last day as portrayed in Phillips video? The last day of the tour the allosaur site was already flagged off and the group scheduled to dig on the allosaur that day never did. The scene and prayer of the discovery that is in “Raising the Allosaur” was staged by Phillips.
Doug Phillips made the DeRosa boys famous through his agressive promotions on his web as
prodigies and professionals since the ages of five and seven. This enabled the DeRosas to get the Edmontasaurus excavation as well as speaking engagements around the country. At a meeting of local churches and home schoolers in Western New York the DeRosas claim that Mark discovered the Allosaur and Peter was the one who identified it. They also claim that NASA came and did a one-hour web cast on their work, commending them for their 'good science'.
Doug lifted Joe Taylor's credentials and gave them to the DeRosa boys plus added his own embellishments. Doug Phillips supported the DeRosas as they took possession of the Allosaur and set out to cheat Joe out of his ownership percentage in the bones. Doug used his legal expertise to "define the argument" in order to protect his film and give false credentials to the DeRosas.
Why did Vision Forum suspend activities with Creation Expeditions which brought in $30,000 and more several times a year on tours, not to mention the sale of fossils, tools, toys, and creation books and dont forget those hats..etc?
Why did Vision Forum send out a letter October 29th, 2004 citing ethical issues involving the DeRosa family?.
Why did Doug Phillips threaten Joe Taylor and tell him to get an attorney several times from November 2002 through January 2003?
Why did Doug Phillips take on Pete DeRosas
legal defense in November 2002 and interfere with Pete and Joe’s business arrangement?
Did you know that both the Vision Forum Board of Directors and the Creation Expeditions Board are not accountability Boards? We were told by members of both boards that they function only as resource Boards!
Did you know that during the Allosaur debacle Doug Phillips did not have any acting elders at his church?
Did you know that Pete DeRosa and family
were not members of the church they attended in Florida and the pastor made a statement that he would be incapable of administering any church discipline?
Did you know that Pete told the pastor of the church he attended and others that he was a member of Doug Phillip’s church for accountability purposes as a traveling missionary?
Did you know when a family went to Phillips as Pete’s pastor Phillips told the family that he served as Pete’s accountability for the Joe Taylor situation only?
Did you know that Mark Meadows has read all the letters that Doug Phillips wrote to Joe Taylor, bullying and threatening Taylor, but his own Vision Forum Board has not read one?
Did you know that Pete DeRosa was CSI’s field Director and willing to put it in writing when he wrote a letter to the bank on 10-18-01, so the Forbes could buy the Allosaur property in December of 2001 when Dana Forbes had retired from teaching in June of 2001?
Did you know that now Pete DeRosa claims that he was not CSI’s field Director, but an independent agent?
Did you know that Doug Phillips wrote Tom DeRosa a threatening letter after Pete and Doug had betrayed Tom and CSI? Tom DeRosa was in a care facility recovering from a kidney transplant when this letter was written!
Did you know that Doug Phillips vigorously pursued Tim Dudley of Master Books for a book contract on the Allosaur dig? Did you know that after securing the contract Pete contacted Tim Dudley and told him he did not have enough good photographs to write a book on the allosaur dig?
Did you know in the Phillips to Taylor letters Phillips claimed Pete never intended to sell the allosaur bones but use them for the glory of God?
Why did Phillips put his law license in jeopardy to protect the DeRosas and his film “Raising the Allosaur”?
Did you know that Dana and Brenda Forbes charged Pete DeRosa for
Breach of his contract with them early 2004, acknowledged Joe Taylor's interest in allosaur from May 2001 and sold their interest to Joe Taylor, in order to force Pete into mediation?
Did you know that Joe Taylor was not allowed to bring witnesses to the April 2004 mediation?
Did you know that Joe Taylor paid the Forbes their interest which was $44,500 after the April 2004 mediation?
Did you know when and why Don Hart took over both as legal counsel for Vision Forum and the legal defense of Doug Phillips in the Allosaur debacle?
Did you know that Don Hart asked Shannon Norris not to turn Doug in to the DC Bar for his ethical violation even though the rules listed on the DC Bar website say an attorney is required to turn in these violations? Did you know that Don Hart and Shannon Norris had been friends in law school? Shannon agreed and gave his word to Don Hart to the detriment of his client, Joe Taylor.
Did you know that Doug Phillips asked his friend Ed Watts to take over the legal defense of Pete DeRosa after being cited for his ethical violation?
Why wasn’t Joe Taylor allowed to have witnesses at the 2004 mediation?
The mediator Rick Greene is a friend of Doug Phillips and a member of Joe Taylor’s primitive Baptist faith.
Here is the letter of charges Shannon Norris (Joe Taylor's attorney) wrote to Rick Greene and never got the chance to present.
Why wasn’t Joe Taylor allowed to show his film with actual footage of the excavation and testimony of those involved as evidence at the mediation?
Why was Joe censored from critiquing “Raising the Allosaur”, Doug’s film?
Doug speaks of holding to the highest standards of honesty and character, standing for our constitutional rights of free speech, why would Doug be in favor of censoring Joe Taylor?
Why was Doug Phillips allowed to continue to sell his film, “Raising the Allosaur” which Phillips calls a documentary when it does not tell the truth, give credit where credit is due and as DeRosas have stated, is riddled with lies?
Why didn’t Phillips sign the April 2004 mediation? Matter of fact why was Phillips involved in this mediation at all?
Why did Dana Forbes issue a
public letter asking for action from creationists concerning Pete DeRosa?
Why did Doug Phillips write the lease between the Schulke’s of South Dakota and Creation Expeditions where the Edmontasaurus was excavated? Why Schulke was told the bones from his property would be used for the glory of God and therefore Schulke was not financially compensated for the bones in that lease? Why Schulke was told the other creation ministries wanted money for the bones, but Pete just wanted to glorify God with the bones? Ministry is big business and millions of dollars can be made through ministries. People freely give because they can get a tax credit and people love to support what they believe to be a good cause.
Why did Pete DeRosa claim that NASA scientists came to his dig site and did a one hour web cast on their work? Why did he claim that NASA scientists declared Creation Expeditions grids and graphs as good science?
Why has Pete DeRosa and Doug Phillips claimed that Pete and his boys have World renown and dug at some of the best site in the world?
Why did Bob Renaud call in as a witness to the March 2007 arbitration specifically to call Joe Taylor a racist based on Joe’s comments on the now defunct web site Little Geneva? Who led Joe to the Little Geneva site?