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For about two months in late 2009, Joel R. Peebles had no idea where his moth­er was. She didn't answer when he called her cell­phone or respond to knocks on the door of her home in the gated Woodmore community in Prince George's County.

Unbeknownst to her son, Betty Peebles, the pastor who'd transformed Jericho City of Praise in Landover into a mul­ti­million-dollar min­istry con­glom­erate, had written a new will and quietly admitted her­self into a Baltimore hos­pital for can­cer treat­ment, acquaintances said.

A group of longtime Jericho members say that in March of the same year, she also signed papers nam­ing them to a revised board of trustees with a mandate that they han­dle the busi­ness side of the min­istry, an arrange­ment that would keep her son in place as the church's spiritual lead­er, but bar him from con­trolling the mon­ey.

In a court bat­tle that erupted days af­ter Betty Peebles died of can­cer in October, Joel Peebles, 42, dis­puted the claim, saying his moth­er left him in charge. Both sides entered court-or­dered me­diation Friday but did not reach a res­olution. A hearing sched­uled Tuesday for a judge to consid­er pending motions was postponed in lieu of the parties returning to me­diation.

Longtime acquaintances of Betty Peebles, who also watched Joel Peebles grow up in the min­istry and spoke on the con­dition of anonymity, said the moth­er's absence from her son from November 2009 through Jan­uary 2010 — dur­ing which they mis­sed the entire hol­iday sea­son at a crit­ical point in her illness — illus­trates the ten­sion that sometimes existed be­tween the two.

Moth­er and son clearly loved each oth­er, the acquaintances said, but she worried that her sole surviving son was not yet ready to han­dle the financial reins of the min­istry she'd grown to include a 10,000-seat sanctu­ary, se­nior cit­i­zens complex, busi­ness park, col­lege, school and a lucrative deal to pro­vide parking dur­ing Wash­ington Redskins games.

A letter that Betty Peebles sent to the staff of the min­istry's high school in May 2009 shows that she had reservations about the financial con­dition of the school, then headed by Joel Peebles. In the letter, she said the school would cost the church an un­antic­ipated $1.2 million and that she would take over as headmas­ter.

In a depo­sition tak­en as part of the lawsuit that the al­leged trustees filed against Joel Peebles, Glo­ria McClam-Magrud­er, a for­mer headmas­ter of Jericho Chris­tian Academy who says she is one of the trustees, tes­ti­fied that Betty Peebles was also worried that Joel Peebles had al­lowed the taxes to go delinquent on the fam­ily home in South­east Wash­ington. "She was very much concerned about that," McClam-Magrud­er recalled in the depo­sition. "And she even said to me, 'I wonder should I pay for it' . . . because she wanted to keep that house in the fam­ily."

Records from the D.C. Office of Tax and Rev­enue show that tax liens were filed for the prop­erty but were lat­er set­tled. Foreclosure complaints were also filed against Joel and Ylawnda Peebles for prop­erty in Lanham and Baltimore, records show. Tim­o­thy Mal­oney, an attor­ney for the couple, said they own sev­eral rental prop­er­ties and have had diffi­culty at times with ten­ants failing to pay the rent.

Joel Peebles, who dec­lined to com­ment on the specifics of the case, defend­ed his role in the min­istry. He says his moth­er named him to the church's governing board in 1997, short­ly af­ter the deaths of his fa­ther and old­est broth­er, and that he re­mains its rank­ing member. He said she granted him her power of attor­ney in 2003, when she suffered her first bout with can­cer, and tapped him to serve as school headmas­ter be­ginning in 1999, and vice pres­ident of a board that over­sees the se­nior cit­i­zens complex.

He produced sev­eral tax and loan doc­u­ments and a report the church files to D.C. govern­ment as a nonprof­it op­erating in Mary­land, showing that he signed as a trustee or di­rector, usu­ally di­rectly under his moth­er, who headed the board until her death.

Despite the ac­ri­mo­ny, both sides said they are opti­mis­tic that they can re­solve the mat­ter. "I absolutely love ev­ery last one of the folks in­volved in this sit­uation," Joel Peebles said. "This sit­uation is com­ing to a close, and we will be extraor­dinar­ily happy to con­tinue to work for the glo­ry of God."

Jericho, with about 19,000 members, is one of the region's largest, most pros­per­ous min­istries. Betty Peebles's husband, Bish­op James Peebles Sr., founded the church in 1964, while she led the choirs. When Joey, the youngest of three boys, sang his first solo at age 7, his moth­er sat proudly behind the piano, accompa­nying him.

Betty Peebles lat­er became a co-pastor, rais­ing the ire of some who found it inappropriate for a woman to take a leading role in the pul­pit, ul­ti­mately caus­ing the couple to pull out of the Baptist de­nom­ination, acquaintances said.

She took over as pastor af­ter her husband died of a heart attack at age 63 in September 1996. Four months lat­er, her old­est son, James Jr., then 38, also suffered a fa­tal heart attack. Her sec­ond son, John, 44, died af­ter a brief illness in 2004. Still, Betty Peebles carried on, becom­ing one of the first women to head a megachurch.

The min­istry flour­ished — as did its po­lit­ical influ­ence. When the church cel­ebrated paying off a $36 million mortgage for its Landover location in just sev­en years, then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) and Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R) cel­ebrated from a front pew with the members. But, like many first-generation megachurch pastors, Betty Peebles still ran her em­pire like a small house of wor­ship, choos­ing min­istry deci­sion-makers who, regard­less of qualifications, were loyal to her.

Admin­istrators said in depo­sitions that the church for many years had no of­ficial method to se­lect a board of trustees, no set qualifications to serve, no annual busi­ness meetings and produced no annual report. They also tes­ti­fied about col­lecting hun­dreds of thou­sands of dollars in monthly tithes and offerings and op­erating with lit­tle out­side over­sight or communication to members about how their do­nations were be­ing spent.

Dorothy Williams, the church's chief financial offi­cer and an al­leged board member, tes­ti­fied that she graduated from high school at age 35 and has no col­lege degree. She started working at Jericho 20 years ago as a vol­unteer, moved into orga­nizing offering envelopes and count­ing mon­ey and lat­er was named CFO.

Williams, who rents a base­ment room in the Up­per Marlboro home of Betty Peebles's daugh­ter-in-law, said in the depo­sition that she didn't know how she became a member of the church's board when she was first ap­pointed in 1997. "The apos­tle prob­a­bly just put me there," she said, af­ter question­ing from Mal­oney.

Support­ers of Joel Peebles say the al­leged board members' actions against him are retal­iation against his at­tempts to make the church's finances more trans­par­ent with new practices, such as reporting on the church's Web site how con­tri­butions are be­ing used.

In his counter­suit, Joel Peebles chal­lenges the le­gality of the al­leged board and crit­icizes salary increases he says that three of its members — who dou­ble as full-time employees of the church — ei­ther granted them­selves or were giv­en by Betty Peebles af­ter she became ill.

Accord­ing to their depo­sitions, Denise Killen went from an as­sistant admin­istrator making about $55,000 to an admin­istrator drawing $70,000; Clarence Jack­son, the fa­cilities man­ag­er, went from $71,000 to $91,000; and Dorothy Williams, from $63,000 to $83,000. Cliff Boswell, who once did small tasks for Betty Peebles, con­tinues to col­lect a $200 monthly stipend.

Joel Peebles also has chal­lenged his moth­er's person­al will, which dispers­es $5,000, her inter­est in a prop­erty in North Car­olina and oth­er "tan­gible person­al prop­erty" to Joel Peebles; a Mer­cedes-Benz sedan to Jack­son, the fa­cilities man­ag­er and al­leged board member who was her driv­er and confidante; a Rolex watch to McClam-Magrud­er; and an­oth­er Rolex to "my friend Asya Peebles."

The will names Michael and De­lores Free­man, friends who also are pastors of Spirit of Faith Min­istries, an­oth­er megachurch, as "person­al rep­resentatives" of her estate.

Af­ter a dis­agree­ment erupted be­tween Joel Peebles and the oppos­ing side over the offering col­lection July 3, the al­leged board sought a temporary re­strain­ing or­der to block Peebles from han­dling the mon­ey. A judge granted the request, or­dered the group to hand over financial records that Joel Peebles had sought, and ap­pointed a me­diator.

Scott Thumma, a pro­fessor and research­er who has stud­ied megachurches for more than 20 years, said the Jericho upheaval is not un­usu­al when a church loses a high-pro­file lead­er. "Too of­ten, ten­sion and conflict fill the void in the struggle for con­trol of resources, leader­ship and a new vi­sion. With­out prior planning, such tran­sition times can eas­ily result in the demise of the orga­ni­zation the var­ious parties are fight­ing to con­trol."

News research­er Jennifer Jenk­ins con­tributed to this report.