J efferson and his wife, Pastor Brenda Jefferson, live in a sprawling house in Brandon hidden behind a 6-foot-high wall. They have at least five vehicles at their disposal, including a Bentley Arnage. They fly across the country in a private jet.

BOD: The river of money that pays for this lifestyle begins flowing in part at street corners and mall food courts, says former church pastor Keith Dixon, and is based on deception.

``It's fraud,'' Dixon says. ``If I have a bucket that says `Help feed needy women and children' and I take the money and go buy a Rolls-Royce, that's fraud. Is [Jefferson] a homeless, needy woman or child? That's what the bucket says, `Help feed needy women and children.' ''

The law grants nonprofit organizations such as churches an exemption from taxes. But that can be stripped if the Internal Revenue Service determines a nonprofit's funds excessively benefit the people in charge.

Jefferson doesn't benefit, he says.

``I don't ask them for nothing here. I don't take nobody's money,'' he said during an interview with The Tampa Tribune and WFLA, News Channel 8. ``I don't have nothing in my name. If I was trying to have something, the cars would be in my name. I don't have nothing in my name. I got one house in my name. I paid $160,000 for it'' in 1995.

But church members provided much of the labor to build additions to the house, he says.

And a second house bought by the church has since been deeded to Jefferson and his stepson, Calvin Lanier. The deed was assigned to them in 1998, records show. Lanier lived there with his wife, who is Jefferson's daughter, until the pair divorced last year.

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