On its best days the BestLife Gifts store in the Valley Supreme Plaza buzzed with visitors looking for gifts and souvenirs related to Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination with nearly nine million adherents around the globe.

Online, BestLife boasted it could handle two busloads of visitors at a time, many of them among the tens of thousands who annually visit the community’s world headquarters in Warwick and Watchtower Farms near the hamlet of Wallkill, home to acres of farmland and a print shop that turns out millions of books and Bibles a year.

But BestLife Gifts, according to a recent court ruling, was a business built on lies, bricks held together by greed as much as mortar and justified by seizing on a troubled time in a man’s life.

The BestLife Gifts storefront is empty now. A sign on the door tells visitors, “Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic we will be closed until further notice!” There’s a phone number listed, but several tries were met with a recording: “The person you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time. Please try your call again later.”

Back in July 2018, Greg Holland, who had earlier partnered with Thomas and Nanci Matos, sued them and BestLife for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty.

By February 2021, BestLife, which never reopened, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in federal court. The case is pending. And in July, Holland’s lawsuit finally went to trial in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Judge Kenneth M. Karas ruled in favor of Holland in August, and said the Matoses, whom the judge noted had serious credibility problems, owed him $980,446.80 plus court costs.

One recent afternoon, outside the vacant BestLife storefront, the sum briefly silenced the proprietor of a neighboring business in the plaza.

Holland, himself, found words in Luke (12:2) when asked if he had a comment on the outcome, a balm following a rough period in his life: “There is nothing carefully concealed that will not be revealed, and nothing secret that will not become known.”

Holland’s comment was relayed by one of his attorneys, Joshua B. Katz, of Kent, Beatty & Gordon in New York City.

Holland began, “I am very grateful for Judge Karas’ thorough and well-reasoned verdict in my case against Thomas and Nanci Matos. The verdict confirmed that the Matoses committed major theft and fraud, and then lied about it under oath at trial. I hope that this verdict will prevent others from being victimized by them in the future. I am sad that Tom and Nanci continue to portray themselves as faithful members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation,” before ending with Jesus’ words according to Luke.

Going Into Business

Holland is a Canadian who in 2017 was living in Ecuador, where he ran a successful online business called Ministry Ideaz, manufacturing and selling religious-themed leather and paper goods. He wanted to establish his first brick and mortar store in the United States and a fellow church member introduced him to the Matoses, a husband and wife living in Pine Bush.

Holland and the Matoses went into business together in May 2017, with Holland controlling 90 percent and the Matoses with 10 percent of the profits and losses. According to Holland’s complaint, he “entrusted the Matoses with managing all aspects of Ministry Ideaz and its store” because he was in South America.

Ministry Ideaz was a hit. According to Holland, who had poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the business, the Pine Bush store grossed over $250,000 from credit card sales alone from August through December 2017.

However, just eight months into their operation, the Matoses formed a separate entity, BestLife Gifts LLC, threatened Holland with destroying his pre-existing online business by publishing his personal and marital troubles, and unilaterally dissolved Ministry Ideaz.

The Ministry Ideaz sign in the Valley Supreme Plaza came down and the BestLife sign went up, although the Matoses had told Holland that the store had been shuttered. The Matoses told Holland they could not work with a man who had been disfellowshipped from the church. (Holland had had an extramarital affair and had been hospitalized in a coma caused by drugs.) Eventually, on March 5, 2018, Holland was manipulated into signing away his interest in Ministry Ideaz. The stress of it all landed him briefly in a Canadian hospital. According to court records, BestLife went on to gross more than $1 million from March 2018 to December 2019. As part of Judge Karas’ ruling, the March 5 agreement was declared void because of fraud on the part of the defendants.

Holland’s complaint goes on for 16 pages, detailing the Matoses’ financial shenanigans and exploitation of his personal turmoil. They offered emotional support on one hand, he said, while simultaneously urging his wife to divorce him. Karas’ decision goes on for 34 pages and leaves no doubt whose story — Holland’s or the Matoses’ who had countersued — was more credible.

Referring to Thomas Matos’ testimony, the judge said, “I’ll put it bluntly. Mr. Matos was a bad liar. He was also a serial liar.” Regarding Nanci Matos’ credibility, the judge concluded, “I wouldn’t buy a pencil from her.”

“Clear to me,” the judge said, “the Matoses are not honest people. The fact that they’re so righteous and pious, I mean, really, lying under oath? That’s supposed to be model Jehovah’s Witnesses’ behavior? It’s certainly not tolerated in the courts.”

Greg Holland and his wife, who had separated, are back together and living in Canada. Joshua Katz, his attorney, said his client is running an online business.

The Matoses are living in Florida. They did not reply to a text message requesting a comment. A phone call to their attorney was not returned.