For those that were wondering for him to receive 8 years and what was really happening.
First that business was setup without any licening or registration, minor issue, then he used false records to make it look like a church owned the assests so he could protect it from taxes. he also instructed people to say in tax forms that they had donated money to his various fake churches.
It was then shown in court that he knew the scammers were using his site, and he would charge then up to 21%, for him to act as the middleman. Asking some questions is not going to cover you if you know people are using you for illegal activities.
The $40,000 is a fine, some for the lack of filing business papers. the next court action is to find out how much he will required to pay in restitution, and that will be in hte millions; the scammers had used him to take in over $10 million.
The trial for this took place last year when he was convicted.