The prosecutors charged that Moon failed to declare as income (and pay taxes on) $112,000 in earned interest in a Chase Manhattan bank account, and on the receipt of $50,000 of corporate stock.
[8] Kenneth Briggs, former religion editor of the New York Times, wrote: While Moon was in prison, members of the Unification Church of the United States launched a public-relations campaign.
[11] Among the other people who protested the government's prosecution of Moon were Harvey Cox, a Professor of Divinity at Harvard and Eugene McCarthy, United States Senator and former Democratic Party presidential candidate.
[16] Michael Tori, a professor at Marist College (Poughkeepsie, New York) suggested that Moon's conviction helped the Unification Church gain more acceptance in mainstream American society, since it showed that he was financially accountable to the government and the public.
Sherwood mentions opposition to Moon by the news media, major Christian denominations, and members of the government including Representative Donald Fraser and Senator Bob Dole.
[18][19] Sherwood sums up his views by writing: The Unification Church, its leaders and followers were and continue to be the victims of the worst kind of religious prejudice and racial bigotry this country has witnessed in over a century.
Moreover, virtually every institution we as Americans hold sacred the Congress, the courts, law enforcement agencies, the press, even the US Constitution itself was prostituted in a malicious, oftentimes brutal manner, as part of a determined effort to wipe out this small but expanding religious movement.