Police: Televangelist beaten, presses charges

? Juanita Bynum, a televangelist with a national following for sermons about women’s empowerment, pressed charges against her estranged husband Thursday after she was bruised in a confrontation with him during a meeting to reconcile, police said.

Preacher Thomas W. Weeks III, founder of Global Destiny churches, will be charged with aggravated assault and terroristic threats, Officer Ronald Campbell said.

The struggle happened early Wednesday in the parking lot of the Renaissance Concourse Hotel near Atlanta’s airport, Campbell said.

“They were talking about a reconciliation. They got into an argument. In the process of the argument, her husband walked out to the parking lot area, turned back around and started to choke Miss Bynum,” Campbell said.

“As he choked her, he pushed her down to the ground and started to kick her and also stomp on her,” he said. “There was a bellman at the location who witnessed the whole assault, intervened, and pulled Mr. Weeks off of Miss Bynum.”