Victoria Osteen, wife of Joel Osteen of mega-church, Lakewood in Houston, and its co-pastor is on trial for assaulting Continental Airlines flight attendant Sharon Brown in 2005. Ms. Brown alleges that Ms. Osteen assaulted her because a spill on the armrest of her first-class seat was not cleaned up fast enough. Ms. Brown is seeking 10% of Ms. Osteen's net worth.

I watch Joel Osteen's sermon each week and love his preaching/teaching style. His church regularly draws at least 40,000 people to its services so I am not alone in my admiration of him. I am disappointed by the facts as I see them in this case.

The fact is there was some sort of altercation between to the two women. Regardless of the degree of shoving and shouting, if that did in fact occur, Ms. Brown has produced witnesses to the incident. That doesn't bode well for Ms. Osteen unless the credibility of the witnesses is questionable. On the other hand, Ms. Osteen denied the charges and her husband took the stand in her defense but did not actually witness the incident as he was in another part of the plane.

The Associated Press reports that Pastor Joel Osteen referred to the incident as an "unfortunate misunderstanding". A what? Misunderstanding? I don't think so; somebody's just lying.

Related link: Osteen's wife denies assaulting flight attendant