My Son Stole My Sacred Hymns and Sold Them to a Seattle Megachurch for $85,000 — Then I Sang the Unpublished Second Verse in Front of His Congregation
The next few days were a flurry of activity. Arthur Pendelton worked quickly, his office becoming a temporary command center. He filed an emergency copyright injunction in federal court, a thick stack of documents seeking to block Grace Cathedral and Daniel’s media company from further use or distribution of my music. I understood little of the legal jargon, but Arthur’s calm confidence was a balm.
“This will freeze their operations regarding your compositions, Mrs. Park,” he explained. “It buys us time and puts Daniel on the defensive.”
I nodded, hoping for a moment of peace. That peace, however, was short-lived.
Two mornings later, I walked to my local bank, the branch I had used for twenty years. My rent was due, and I needed to withdraw a portion of my meager savings. It wasn’t much, just $4,200, meticulously accumulated from years of seamstress work, but it was enough to get by.
I handed my card to the teller, a young woman who recognized me. She typed for a moment, then frowned, her fingers hovering over the keyboard.
“Mrs. Park,” she said, her voice hesitant, “it seems… your account is frozen.”
My stomach dropped. “Frozen? What do you mean?”
“There’s a hold placed on it,” she explained, looking at her screen. “It says by ‘corporate request.’ It appears to be a joint account, and the other account holder has initiated the freeze.”
The other account holder. Daniel. An old joint account from when he was in college, which I’d left open, mostly forgotten. He had used it to freeze my money.
“I need that money for rent,” I whispered, my voice trembling.
The teller shook her head, a sympathetic but helpless expression on her face. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Park. I can’t release any funds without a court order or the other account holder’s authorization.”
I left the bank feeling numb, the weight of financial vulnerability pressing down on me. As if that wasn’t enough, a few hours later, a courier arrived at my door. He handed me a thick envelope with a corporate seal, “Grace Hymnal Media.”
Inside was a formal cease-and-desist letter. It was professionally drafted, full of legal threats and formal language. It declared that I was forbidden from entering any church property where “Grace Hymnal Media” operated, citing “disruptive behavior and malicious intent.”
It listed not just Grace Cathedral, but also several smaller Korean community centers and churches across Seattle that Daniel’s company supplied music to. My cultural spaces, my places of community and solace, were now off-limits.
Daniel wasn’t just fighting in court; he was trying to choke off my very existence, severing my ties to my community and my means of survival. I held the letter, my hands shaking. The cold had truly reached my bones now.
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