Out of the lion's den: A Christian author with a long list of abandoned business deals and unpaid creditors finds a new home for his work in Macon County. He says it's a chance for redemption. Others aren't so sure.
Jack Snyder illustration
Most novelists dedicate their books to loved ones, sources of inspiration or the memory of someone who has passed away. Cliff Graham dedicated his 2024 book, “The Boundary of Blood,” to “every man that has ever been broken.” The dedication might be self-referential.
By age 30, Graham was seizing his dreams. His first novel, initially self-published, had become an instant success in the Christian literary world, and there were talks about a movie adaptation.
Graham, now 43, gained acclaim as a writer, but his greatest talent might be his ability to sell an idea — and there came a point where Graham was doing more of that than writing. Over the years, the author attracted dozens of investors into his creative and entrepreneurial endeavors, most of which were eventually driven into the ground. Within a few years, the series of failed ventures led to a mound of debt and angry creditors, and according to the 12 people The Smoky Mountain News spoke with, he still owes money to dozens, if not hundreds, of individuals and organizations.
On a Facebook page created by and for people Graham owes money, dozens vent and post updates on their situations. They say they are owed anywhere from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars. One woman was awarded a $99,000 judgment. Some say they have reached out to local authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to pursue charges of fraud and writing bad checks. A spokesperson from the FBI said that, in line with Justice Department policy, she couldn’t say whether agents ever investigated Graham or even whether they’d received formal complaints.
Graham admits that he’s made mistakes and that he has spent a decade telling people that repayment is just around the corner.
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Graham said in an email he feels many people — either through lack of understanding or pure malice — have exaggerated some of his previous wrongdoings.
“With all of that being said, there is no way around the truth that I was a fool and an idiot,” he wrote. “I hurt people who trusted me, I ignored wise counsel, I misled people constantly as to how things were going, and created one disaster after another in the pursuit of my calling and the management of my business.”
One might think Graham’s reputation would kill any future opportunities, but he recently found a new venue for his written work in Macon County, with Kavod Family Ministries, a Franklin-based religious nonprofit. They have worked out an arrangement to reissue his old works and publish new projects.
“They have taken me in when no one else would,” Graham said via email.
Many of Graham’s creditors have abandoned any hope they’ll be made whole. Others believe more restitution will come. Graham believes his new partnership in Macon County is the beginning of a great redemption arc, a chance for a broken man to repair the damage he’s caused.
Day of War
Graham began writing his first novel on nights and weekends when pursuing a master’s in religious studies. He earned a political science degree from Black Hills State University in 2006, after which he enlisted in the National Guard out of South Dakota and joined a military police unit. Although the unit was activated, Graham never deployed overseas, something people close to him said is still a source of disappointment to him.
A few years later, while in graduate school, Graham lived in San Antonio near his parents and worked at a church led by his uncle. He said he eventually gained his commission and served in the National Guard’s Chaplain Corps, but still never served overseas.
Around the time Graham became more serious about his writing, the movie “300” came out and through its telling of the Battle of Thermopylae revolutionized the action genre by stylizing the film like a graphic novel. He believed there was a market for such a sensational rendering of Old Testament stories, in both film and books. He was particularly interested in the exploits of King David and his small but elite band of “mighty warriors” referenced in 2 Samuel 23. The stories became the inspiration for the “Lion of War Series,” which Graham envisioned as five novels that would portray biblical battles of David’s army in gory detail.
“I got into writing because I had a passion for storytelling, and I believed that modern men had been misinformed about what was in the Bible,” Graham said in an email. “They thought it was just Jesus petting lambs, and I wanted to show them stories like the wars of King David.”
Graham’s work depicts tremendously violent and intense tales of brave men fighting against tough odds. While the stories are based on scripture, he typically stretches one small verse or set of verses into vivid narratives with plenty of sprays, spurts and splatters of blood. In Graham’s first book, “Day of War,” the first two chapters are based on one verse that says one of David’s commanders, Benaiah, had once killed a lion in a pit on a snowy day.
Graham initially self-published “Day of War” on a limited print run in 2009. Through a connection with a student in a youth group Graham led, David Cunningham, a film director and producer based out of Hawaii, contacted him about the film rights, with visions of producing a violent epic of biblical proportions. Cunningham did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The books quickly caught on with Christian audiences, mostly men looking for more action than could be found sitting on a hard pew listening to a sermon. Graham’s work has an impressive 4.42/5 average rating on goodreads.com; “Song of War,” the third book in the series, has a 4.54.
In 2012, Graham formed Five Stones Media LLC in Utah through which he courted investors for a “Day of War” film. According to a prospectus sent to potential investors, Five Stones’ vision was to “create high quality, aggressive and thought-provoking entertainment content that affects popular culture for Christ, bringing God’s Word into the light of mainstream media, and establishing the Bible as the cutting edge of today’s popular consumption marketplace.”
In June 2011, the book “Day of War” was released commercially after Zondervan, the Christian publishing arm of HarperCollins, bought the rights, largely intrigued by the potential film project that already seemed to have momentum, according to the prospectus. According to the prospectus, the novel reached the Amazon bestseller list on multiple occasions and was No. 1 in the religious fiction category, selling an estimated 90,000 copies its first year. However, the prospectus says the traditional model of publishing rarely enabled novels to become “massive hits,” so more money was needed to achieve Graham’s entrepreneurial vision.
Graham “intends to capitalize on his growing recognition as the pioneering author of the bare-knuckle brawling Bible story,” the prospectus reads.
The initial prospectus sought $3 million in investments, but Graham said that amount grew to $5 million in a later version of the document. The minimum a person could contribute was $10,000. The prospectus promised investors they would recoup their initial investment, plus 25%, upon the publication and sale of future projects, including books and movies. Furthermore, the prospectus stated that investors would receive 0.1% of all profits per $10,000 invested.
The prospectus estimated that by January 2018, Five Stones would turn a profit of $17 million–for a return of over $25,000 on each $10,000.
Graham said Five Stones never raised the $5 million. Some investors said they got all their money back. Others say they got some but never saw the promised returns.
Many investors were Graham’s close friends and family. Three Five Stones investors who spoke with SMN each said they put at least $50,000 into his company. It isn’t known publicly, and Graham wouldn’t disclose how many investors he worked with or how much he ultimately raised.
One investor filed suit: Margo Milianta, the mother of one of Graham’s former close friends. The March 2019 settlement asserts that Milianta initially gave Graham $130,000. He paid back some but still owed her almost $100,000. Graham ultimately defaulted on that agreement and has since been subject to wage garnishment.
Others on the Facebook group have discussed suing Graham, perhaps even under a class action lawsuit. Others have mentioned criminal charges but say they have been dismayed by investigators’ disinterest.
“FBI … super rude ... I called and they have no information about Cliff! The women I spoke with said it could take years before they get any information,” one woman posted on March 30, 2024, along with a number to call. “Keep calling and bug them until we see something happen.”
Graham’s side quests
Throughout his life, Graham has been drawn to alpha male types who’ve proven their mettle in one way or another. Those types have also been drawn to his work.
Among them was Tim Ballard, founder of the anti-human trafficking organization Operation Underground Railroad. Prior to his resignation in June 2023, Ballard was a sort of folk hero in conservative circles for rescuing children from criminal organizations — although the stories of those missions were later found to be exaggerated — and featured in the film “Sound of Freedom.”
Through his burgeoning friendship with Ballard, Graham joined anti-human trafficking circles and even claimed to take part in several missions; however, his biggest role was raising the money Operation Underground Railroad needed to fund operations. At the 2016 Cavetime USA Conference, a three-day Christian men’s retreat in Adair, Oklahoma, Graham talked about the dark world he’d encountered participating in Operation Underground Railroad operations.
“I once sat across the table from a guy in Colombia — I was posing as a buyer, as a client — and he pulled out his iPhone and was scrolling through pictures of little girls,” Graham told the crowd, “and it was like he was showing you a car to sell. It’s like ‘OK, she’s 9, a virgin; $1,000.’”
Two people who worked with Graham on operations in Latin America, speaking on the condition of anonymity because either they are still close to Graham or they are still taking part in missions, said that while Graham did observe or have a role in some operations with other entities, they never saw him participate in an operation with OUR. Graham said his time working with OUR was brief.
“Part of what causes so much confusion among people who were affected by those days is the fact that I was never working directly for any of the organizations like OUR,” Graham said. “I had formed my own team and operation early on, and it worked in tandem with other groups on specific operations. That team was called Gibborim.”
Cliff Graham (left) and Cody Bobay during an episode of the Gibborim. From Youtube
Those people allege Graham was also pocketing portions of donations that were meant to go toward operations and resources for victims, donations that initially went directly to him with little initial oversight. The two sources said that in 2015, a North Carolina donor contributed $50,000 for victims of human trafficking, but only about half of that money made it to its intended destination.
In 2016, several donors confronted Graham in Costa Rica when he flew there expecting to take part in a mission. According to several people present for that meeting, Graham didn’t admit to taking any donations and flew home the next morning.
“It was eight to 10 guys sitting around a conference table in a hotel office, and they were like, ‘look, we’re not asking if you did it; we know you did it,’” said one man who was in the room.
“In regards to this work, there are mistakes I will admit, but there are also accusations which are false,” Graham said. “Either the mists of time have caused a lack of clarity, or someone with malicious intent is distorting the record on this.”
However, he did say he regretted ignoring the opportunity for accountability at the 2016 meeting.
“Realizing that I had no way of even beginning to defend myself, and that what I was doing was indefensible, I made the choice to not defend my actions in any way,” he said.
In response to questions, Graham neither admitted nor denied taking donations but said that what he considered “indefensible” was how poorly he managed the whole effort, believing his entrepreneurial spirit outstripped his abilities. He did say there is confusion among some because he was “not trying to operate or run an actual human trafficking organization” but was instead “trying to get others involved” and “generate an overall movement.” In addition, he said he thought a “financial partner,” whom he left unnamed, was about to purchase Five Stones, which would have covered “every single expense and commitment.”
“It was sincere and well-meaning, and it was also horrifically managed and executed,” he said.
Graham said that, aside from the fact that he now considers the kind of work he attempted in Latin America “far outside” his calling, it distracted him from obligations he had to pay back people who’d invested in Five Stones.
“To be very clear: Of all the things I ever got involved in in my life, this is the area I regret the most,” Graham said of his time spent in the anti-human trafficking world.
In 2017, Graham launched a training program at a family-owned ranch in Texas, where once a month he offered men a chance to spend a weekend learning the basics of tactical operations, security and first aid. He contracted men with experience in these areas to lead the courses and promised participants they’d have a chance to observe and perhaps even participate in anti-human trafficking sting and rescue operations. According to two sources, one of whom participated in the program and one who worked as an instructor, Graham charged different people different prices for the same training, although they didn’t know what that price range was.
But the program soon unraveled. While airfare was supposed to be included, Graham began telling people he’d reimburse them for it and then failed to do so. Classes that were booked were later canceled without any refund. Some say they were sent refund checks that bounced. A number of people have shared their stories on the Facebook page.
Graham admitted that there are still people he owes refunds but said that most participants liked the courses, and he initially considered them well-run. But like with the Latin American operations, he said many of the problems stem from the fact that he expected a large sum of money to come his way from the sale of Five Stones.
Doug Kramer, who lives in Canada, said he booked a trip to Texas for one of the sessions in 2017. Kramer had read Graham’s books and decided to search online to see what he was up to. Kramer said he was excited to have the chance to serve in a way that’s “beyond a mission trip where we build houses.”
“He was a guy with a vision, he had some of the background, it seemed, to pull it off,” Kramer said. “I had some good confidence that it was going to happen. He was sincere; he was good to talk to. Everything seemed like it’d go off quite well.”
Graham informed Kramer that the class was canceled, and while Kramer wouldn’t disclose how much he paid, he said he didn’t get his money back.
While many in the Facebook group can’t find a good word to say about their common debtor, Kramer often encourages mercy and patience. While he is still upset, Kramer believes Graham deserves grace. He posed the philosophical question: What is his path to redemption, and is that path harder to travel if more stones are slung?
“If you’re a believer and you have any kind of honesty with yourself, there’s lots of things we should be held accountable for,” Kramer said, “and yet Jesus has provided a path to wholeness and redemption.”
Another Graham venture offered all-inclusive trips to Israel, where he would lead guided tours of the ancient battlefields he’d studied so deeply while writing his novels. Graham said he initially had the idea to offer “Good Battle” tours at a reduced price to people willing to help promote his books.
“I viewed it as a marketing effort, as well as a good chance to do research for my creative projects,” Graham said in the email. “Like most things I touched, it was created out of good intentions, and I managed to utterly ruin it.”
Graham said he took several dozen trips over multiple years up to 2020, sometimes as often as once a month with groups of up to 100 people.
According to people interviewed for this story and posts on the Facebook group, some Israel trips were canceled without a refund. Others said they flew to Israel to find that Graham wasn’t there, and they didn’t have accommodations. But those who did make the journey with him seemed to agree it was worth the money.
Joshua Garcia said he paid $2,000 to cover airfare, lodging, meals, and tours. Close to the departure date, Graham reached out and said there were unforeseen issues and asked if Garcia would pay for his own airfare directly, under the promise he would be reimbursed once he touched down in Israel. Purchasing round-trip airfare on such short notice cost about $4,000. Still, Garcia said it was the “trip of a lifetime,” and Graham “seemed like a good guy, and he was very knowledgeable about the Bible.”
But Garcia never got the reimbursement. The check Graham gave him on the last day of the trip bounced.
“He apologized and mailed another check, and that check bounced, too,” Garcia said. Garcia reached out, and Graham said he’d make it right. That’s the last time Garcia heard from him.
In an email, Graham said poor management led to bounced checks.
“I had (foolishly) started using a merchant cash advance company to help pay the bills, and they had the ability to make withdrawals from the Five Stones account at will and without my approval for their own repayment,” Graham said. “When they did that, it would deplete the account and cause checks to bounce.”
Jonathan Herron, founding pastor of the Life Church in Saginaw, Michigan, was attracted by an ad he saw in 2017 offering a trip to Israel with a “ridiculously low” price. His church paid an up-front fee to secure spots for several participants, while Herron communicated with Graham via email about logistics. But then one day, the emails just stopped. The trip never happened, and the deposit was never returned.
“It’s wicked,” Herron said. “The Bible is pretty clear about that. Especially if you’re defrauding a local church, that is absolutely beyond the pale.”
Graham acknowledged that neither Garcia nor Herron were repaid but said they booked their trips at a particularly difficult time.
“It was during the overall mental, physical and spiritual collapse I began to have, and I simply couldn’t communicate with everyone,” he said. “I don’t dispute the details of what they are saying.”
Hold the pass
Cody Bobay was an aspiring actor from Texas when he reached out to Graham in 2015 to express his admiration. The following year, Bobay went on Graham’s first Good Battle Israel trip. The two men stayed close over the next couple of years, and around 2018 Bobay reached out about working together to, as Graham said, “bring Bible stories to life on film.”
Graham was intrigued, but they’d need a company to get it off the ground. At that point, Five Stones existed basically just as a vehicle to pay back creditors. So Bobay became the sole owner and manager of a new company, Gibborim Studios, with Graham working as a contractor. Graham said that from the get-go, Bobay took heat for working with someone who’d already burned so many bridges, hearing warning after warning about working with someone who’d scorned so many past associates. Bobay declined an interview request.
“He was willing to step in and take arrows on my behalf. Because he was publicly associating with me, he was accused of ‘being in on it’ by people who were angry with me, even though Five Stones occurred long before he and I joined up for the Gibborim Studios vision,” Graham said in an email.
The two became close; Bobay and his wife even lived with Graham and his family in their Ogden, Utah, home for a time. They also launched a mobile app to provide updates on both their first film and the promised repayment of Graham’s debts, raising funds by charging a $10 monthly subscription fee.
Graham often asked donors to continue sending “ammo for the fight.”
In one video, Graham lamented his past mistakes, saying that lessons learned would be applied at Gibborim to ensure donors and stakeholders wouldn’t see a repeat performance.
Cliff Graham (right) and Kavod board member Travis Shook during a podcast recording. From Youtube
“I made many mistakes,” Graham said in the video. “What I wanted to do was stay in the arena and keep fighting and keep things moving forward.”
This mea culpa led to an explanation of the team’s oft-repeated ethos: “There needs to be stories of the redemption of broken men,” Bobay said in the video.
The duo ended up making one short film, which can still be found on Amazon’s streaming service: Hold the Pass, a stylized portrayal of a Biblical account in which a man named Shamgar killed 600 Philistines with an oxgoad, a farming implement with a pointed tip used to prod livestock, a brave act that according to the Bible verse saved Israel. Bobay stars as Shamgar.
After promising for years that a feature film would come from Gibborim, Bobay and Graham parted ways in 2023. Graham said they agreed to part ways “in love and mutual respect.” Bobay, he said, needed to be free to pursue his own endeavors unencumbered by Graham’s past.
The Lifeline
Despite his business woes, Graham continued to live an opulent lifestyle. In 2011, he bought a home in Ogden, Utah, for about $900,000. The house, which offers sweeping views of distant mountains, is almost 7,000 square feet, with six bedrooms and five bathrooms. Weber County property records indicate that Graham was delinquent on property taxes most years he owned the home and in 2016 wrote a check for almost $3,000 that was returned.
The private-equity firm that loaned Graham the money for his home re-assumed the property because he’d fallen behind on payments and subsequently sold it for $1.2 million. He has since been living in a fifth-wheel camper with his family, mostly in the Laramie, Wyoming, area.
Over the years, Graham has promised in individual communications, email blasts, and videos that he would make everyone whole again. According to court documents, interviews, and posts on the Facebook page, in some cases people said they’ve received individual payments ranging from less than $50 to thousands, but those payments have been sporadic at best.
In a video posted late last year shot in the cab of a pickup truck in front of the fifth-wheel, Graham admitted that the road had been tough. While he’d published the first three novels in his planned five-book “Lion of War” series, the last two installments remained unwritten.
“I, in general, wasn’t writing at all,” he said. “And we tried a lot of different things … a lot of you are here from the Gibborim days, and we tried our best with that, but it just felt like we were kind of constantly being thwarted. And so it was discouraging in the extreme.”
Graham said he just fell further and further behind, eventually hitting his “rock bottom,” as he put it in one podcast.
But in fall 2023, Kavod Family Ministries board members Travis Shook and Casey Wilson both reached out to Graham to ask what he was up to, curious whether they’d ever get to read the final two books of his series. As their conversations developed, they started talking about republishing the novels that many associated with Kavod so admired.
Late last year, Shook, Wilson and fellow Kavod board member Danny Antoine introduced Graham in a YouTube video. Wilson described Graham as a “really good friend” who he never thought would cross their path.
“God threw us one we did not see coming,” Wilson said, noting how Graham’s “violent men’s stories from a Biblical perspective” had influenced him.
Kavod, which was founded in March 2022 as a 501(c)3, said in a statement that its purpose is “strengthening families through biblical resources and Christian outlets.” It focuses largely on providing opportunities and outlets for youths in the Franklin area, and on bringing more men into the fold.
“We recognize that husbands and fathers have the most significant impact on the stability of families over time,” they wrote.
According to its 2023 IRS form, Kavod brought in $611,467 in revenue and had a net income of just over $350,000, with most of that coming from donations. Kavod also runs Macon Sense, a newspaper out of Franklin that prints every two weeks. While its news coverage is relatively straightforward, its opinion section skews conservative and often offers Christian perspectives.
Kavod has also gained prominence and power in the community as its board members, most committed volunteers and allies have joined numerous public and nonprofit boards. Antoine is also a first-term Macon County commissioner, and Robbie Tompa, who is closely associated with Kavod, is a Franklin town councilmember.
In its email, the Kavod board said Graham has been candid about his failures with Five Stones. They also said they’d had numerous calls with previous investors, friends and others who’d worked with Graham in the past.
While Graham and his family spent a good deal of time in Western North Carolina in early 2024, he has said he doesn’t intend to relocate here. After serious discussion among the board members following Graham’s visit, the partnership was unanimously approved.
“By even associating with me, they have proven willing to take arrows that are unjustified and deeply unfair to them and their reputation,” Graham said in his email.
Graham and Kavod came to the agreement that they’d reissue Graham’s previously published work, albeit with some changes Graham said will reflect his current abilities as a “better writer.” They also plan to eventually release books four and five of the Lion of War Series.
The initial agreement was that Graham would begin work on new books that weren’t subject to entanglements with any investors while they figured out the rights to the first two books of the “Lion of War Series.” Kavod is already selling copies of a “War Prayers” devotional and a novel, “The Boundary of Blood,” which depicts the story of Shamgar.
Ultimately, Graham and Kavod hope this first step is part of a longer journey toward redemption. The Kavod board said that after thorough examination, the members believe that a “healthy process of repentance and restoration” has occurred in Graham’s life over the past decade. The nonprofit’s leadership believes God brought Kavod into Graham’s life when he needed others to rally around him, and that’s what they intend to do.
“There comes a point in a man’s failure — after the offense has taken place, after he acknowledges his failures, after apologies have been made and after unhealthy habits have been addressed — he must be allowed to stand and live again,” the email states. “We believe that time is now for Cliff.”
Last May, Kavod secured the rights to the first two books of the “Lion of War Series” from Zondervan. The rights for books three through five were purchased over a decade ago by a group of 14 investors led by Mitch Wheeler, a 67-year-old Kansas City sports marketing professional.
Wheeler said he first met Graham in 2010 and was instantly drawn to his writing and the potential it had to bring more people to scripture. While he declined to give details on their arrangement, Wheeler said his group is looking forward to seeing Kavod act as publisher for the three remaining novels.
“I love him like a son, which I’ve got two of already,” Wheeler said. Wheeler said he believes Kavod’s board is “providing guardrails” to hold Graham accountable. “I hope this is like the prodigal son where you think all is lost but it’s not.”
Both Wheeler and the Kavod board said they believe that deadlines and accountability, along with positive encouragement, can go a long way.
“Additionally, we believe, morally, in the need to ensure that he continues working toward restoration, and we have the personal place in his life to ensure that he does not get sidetracked in that journey,” wrote Kavod’s board.
Graham is not an employee of Kavod and according to Kavod’s board will not receive any money; profits, perhaps minus royalties, from his books under this venture will go directly to the nonprofit’s ministries, they said.
Email blasts sent out by Graham over the last year state that royalties from any books sold will go toward paying back people left high and dry from his previous ventures. In their email, the Kavod board noted that the nonprofit has the option to designate royalties to Graham’s creditors.
“We are seeking legal counsel on how this might look in the future,” the board said in the email.
“The terms of our agreement with Cliff Graham and the structure of our nonprofit do not allow for the previous mismanagement of funds and overcommitments to take place,” Kavod wrote.
Graham is still subject to wage garnishment in the Milianta suit. Milianta’s daughter, Bree Duran, said they were informed last year that Graham had stopped working for BNSF Railway in September 2023, the same month he came into contact with Kavod.
Some of Graham’s other creditors remain concerned that he could be paid under the table to avoid wage garnishment if they ever pursued their own legal action against him. Graham admitted that he’d heard that concern but said he was offended by the insinuation–not necessarily as it relates to him, but as it relates to his new partners.
“I believe that such an accusation would be an insult to the integrity of the Kavod organization willing to step in and help me finish these projects, and I reject that outright,” he said. While the Kavod board outlined what it said was the general arrangement with Graham, it did not address that specific concern.
In a Kavod podcast last year, Graham explained the dedication of his latest book.
“This is my love letter to my fellow broken men out there,” Graham said, adding that one of the most effective strategies of the “enemy” is to throw a person’s past back at them to say they can never find redemption. Graham gave a specific example.
“There’s nothing that can cripple you like a debt can,” he said in the podcast. “If you’re just in the hole to a lot of people or something big, they can do things to you and damage you and own you the rest of your life.”
Graham said he is working on a memoir he began a while back but has struggled to finish. Kavod will publish “Five Stones,” a book meant for three audiences: people affected by his “failures,” so they can have the full story; his children, so they can have a cautionary tale; and readers of his novels who are interested in the stories behind the books.
Although he admitted that his past story is one of “foolishness and pride,” Graham still swears it is not one of “villainy.”
“To the God of grace, to the people I harmed, and to the many people who are fighting for my redemption story, I owe my absolute best effort,” Graham wrote, “and I believe we will see victory.”
Correction: This story originally stated that Graham sold his home in Ogden, Utah, for $1.2 million. However, his lender sold the property after re-assuming it due to Graham falling behind on the mortgage.
This story was also published in The Assembly, available online at theassemblync.com. Founded in 2021, The Assembly is a digital magazine featuring deeply reported, nuanced stories about the people, institutions and ideas that shape North Carolina.
