The guru of a bankrupt Norcross Hindu temple already engaged in a battle to protect his assets is now facing criminal prosecution.
Annamalai Annamalai, an India native who also goes by the name “Dr. Commander Selvam,” was arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, charged with 22 counts including conspiracy, bankruptcy fraud, money laundering and obstructing justice.
Prosecutors say he fraudulently concealed property belonging to the Hindu Temple and Community Center of Georgia, Inc. from the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee. The temple's former CEO, Kumar Chinnathambi, was also charged in the indictment.
“Not a day too soon or not an hour too early,” said Valmiki Raghunathan, who alleges Annamalai swindled him out of money then sued him when he tried to recover it. “I just love the majesty of this country’s legal system.”
The indictment mirrors accusations by the trustee that Annamalai funneled more than $1 million from the temple to business entities that he controls and to accounts in the names of his wife, two children and assorted priests
Annamali, who once lived in a million-dollar home in Sugarloaf Country Club in Duluth, told federal magistrate judge Linda Walker that he could not afford a lawyer. Atlanta attorney Kendal Silas was appointed to represent him.
Annamalai was arrested last month in Texas after he was indicted by a federal grand jury. He was denied bond at a detention hearing in Houston after U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy deemed him a flight risk. He re-applied for bond Wednesday but no hearing date was set.
The self-proclaimed guru opened the Norcross temple — with a purple exterior adorned in green neon — in 2005 and by the following year he was already under investigation by Gwinnett County police, who, in 2008, charged him with theft and practicing medicine without a license. Those charges were later dismissed but Annamalai suggested at he time that those charges led to the federal probe that began in 2011. Soon after Annamalai told The Atlanta Journal Constitution that the government was out to get him.
“These guys want to shut my mouth, and they want to steal my wealth,” said Annamalai, who relocated to Dayton, Ohio in June 2010 where he allegedly set up a new temple before moving to Baytown, Tex. to set up another. “They think they’ll throw the guy into jail, he’ll never come out and they’ll steal his wealth. But I will fight for my God. I will fight for the truth,” Annamalai said.
He took that fight to civil courts, where he filed several lawsuits alleging breach of contract against individuals he claimed had procured his religious services then failed to pay. Those lawsuits slowed down the bankruptcy trustee’s attempt at recovering funds owned by Annamalai, said the trustee’s lawyer, Hayden Kepner. Among Annamalai’s debtors: the IRS, to which he allegedly owes $600,000.
According to court records, Annamalai used hundreds of thousands of dollars in temple funds to pay the mortgage on his million-dollar mansion in Duluth, as well as his luxury vehicles and credit card bills.
Annamalai and his co-defendant are ordered to forfeit all properties cited in the criminal charges to the U.S. government, the indictment states. The guru remains in federal custody.
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