O. Gene Bicknell thought God wanted him to build a theme park. The 91-year-old businessman poured tens of millions of dollars into the project while receiving religious messages urging him to keep the faith and keep funding it. Now, one of the men behind the project has admitted that at least some of those supposedly divine messages came from him.
Key Takeaways
Businessman Richard M. Silanskas Jr. has admitted to sending religious messages to 91-year-old investor O. Gene Bicknell while posing as a fictional nun named “Sister Catherine.”
Bicknell alleges the messages were part of a scheme designed to convince him that God wanted him to invest more than $60 million in the planned American Heartland Theme Park.
Silanskas admits authoring and sending the messages but says Bicknell pressured him to continue the communications and that he feared for his safety.
The lawsuit remains a civil case involving allegations including fraud, conspiracy, deceit, and unjust enrichment. No court has ruled that all of Bicknell’s allegations are true.
Did a Businessman Really Pretend to Be God to Fund a Theme Park?
The religious messages were not incidental to Bicknell's investment in American Heartland. According to his lawsuit, they became part of the reason he continued pouring money into the massive Oklahoma theme park even as his finances deteriorated and members of his family urged him to stop.
Some appeared as a recurring devotional called “Today's Word,” offering what Bicknell believed was guidance from God. Others came from “Sister Catherine,” a supposed nun who communicated with him personally about his faith, his family and his obligation to continue supporting the project.
Businessman Richard M. Silanskas Jr. has since acknowledged that he authored and sent the “Today's Word” communications as well as messages attributed to Sister Catherine. Bicknell alleges that the messages were part of a larger scheme intended to convince him that financing American Heartland was not simply a business decision, but God's will.
Silanskas disputes that characterization. He has said Bicknell wanted the religious messages to continue and has offered a different account of why he created them. Those competing claims are now part of an ongoing federal lawsuit involving tens of millions of dollars, allegations of fraud and a particularly unusual question of spiritual trust.
Who Is “Sister Catherine”?
Beginning in January 2024, Bicknell began receiving highly personalized emails from a supposed nun named “Sister Catherine.” According to a federal judge's summary of the allegations, roughly 100 of them arrived over the following months from a series of Gmail and Yahoo accounts. One was the rather conspicuous catherinesister909@yahoo.com.
The messages did considerably more than offer generic encouragement. They spoke to Bicknell about “unfaithfulness” and “disobedience,” invoked evil and spiritual warfare, and urged him to resist people close to him who questioned the project. According to the lawsuit, those people increasingly included members of Bicknell's own family.
Bicknell appears to have believed he was corresponding with a real nun. He confided in Sister Catherine about his finances, his strained relationship with his family, and the depression and guilt he said he was experiencing as he struggled to find more money for a project he believed God had assigned to him.
On February 2, Sister Catherine told Bicknell, according to the complaint, that God wanted him to repent for failing to obey. Three days later, another message stressed the urgency of immediately following the instructions God was supposedly sending him. Bicknell responded that he was hiring an attorney and changing his will. On February 9, he transferred more than $2 million from the sale of stock into the project.
The financial and family consequences continued. In March, Bicknell made substantial changes to his estate plan, including naming a new executor and revoking his son's power of attorney. He transferred another $400,000 to the project that month, followed by $2.2 million and another $228,258 in April. The lawsuit alleges that the Sister Catherine messages continued to frame resistance from Bicknell's family as something he had to overcome in order to obey God.
Silanskas has now acknowledged that he created and sent the Sister Catherine communications, although he disputes Bicknell's account of why. Silanskas testified that Bicknell wanted him to continue producing the religious messages and that he feared Bicknell and worried about his family's safety. Bicknell's attorneys reject that explanation. The larger fraud allegations remain unresolved.
A $60 Million Leap of Faith
Bicknell alleges that he invested more than $60 million in the American Heartland project.
The planned development was announced in 2023 as a large Americana-themed destination in Vinita, Oklahoma, with promoters saying it could eventually include a 125-acre theme park and resort complex.
The project was promoted as a major economic development that could attract millions of visitors, but those plans ultimately collapsed. Bicknell alleges that little was built despite the tens of millions of dollars he provided.
By October 2023, the financial pressure was already showing. According to the complaint, Bicknell told Silanskas and Wilhite that he was “basically broke” and had exhausted his options for continuing to finance the project. Yet the religious messages continued, emphasizing obedience and warning him against relying on his own plans and calculations.
His July 2025 lawsuit names Silanskas, Wilhite, and theme park designer Stephen Hedrick as defendants.
Attorneys for Wilhite and Hedrick have sought to distance their clients from the religious messages. Wilhite’s attorneys say he did not know Silanskas was behind them, while Hedrick’s attorney says her client had nothing to do with the “Today’s Word” or Sister Catherine communications.
What Charges Does Silanskas Face?
Despite some coverage describing Silanskas as facing “charges,” Bicknell's lawsuit is a civil case, not a criminal prosecution.
Bicknell accuses Silanskas and the other defendants of fraud, deceit, civil conspiracy, unjust enrichment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and other wrongdoing. His original complaint also included claims under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO.
In May 2026, a federal judge dismissed Bicknell's RICO claims against Wilhite without prejudice after finding that the complaint did not sufficiently allege the required pattern of racketeering activity. Other claims were allowed to continue. None of that determines whether Bicknell's larger account of the alleged scheme is true, and the civil litigation remains ongoing.
The Truth Comes Out
The admission emerged as Bicknell’s attorneys sought access to additional electronic records.
In an August court filing supporting a motion to compel, Bicknell’s attorneys sought Silanskas’s cell phone records, Google accounts, and other electronic materials related to the dispute.
Silanskas had previously fought subpoenas involving Google and Yahoo accounts. Earlier in 2026, the court rejected several of those efforts and ordered discovery to proceed.
According to recent reporting, Silanskas acknowledged during a June deposition that he authored and sent the “Today’s Word” and Sister Catherine messages. Bicknell’s attorneys also allege that Silanskas had previously denied or withheld information about his role in the communications.
Silanskas said during his deposition that he had drawn material from online devotionals and added his own language when composing the religious messages.
The admission establishes who sent at least some of the disputed messages. It does not, by itself, resolve the broader allegations against every defendant or determine whether all of Bicknell’s fraud claims will ultimately succeed.
Is It Illegal to Impersonate a Nun or Other Clergy Member?
There is no single nationwide law that makes every act of pretending to be clergy illegal.
Whether it becomes unlawful depends largely on what the person does while using the false identity.
For example, Alabama has an unusually specific statute making it a misdemeanor to fraudulently pretend in public, through clothing or outward appearance, to be a minister, nun, priest, rabbi, or other clergy member. A violation can carry up to one year in county jail, a fine of up to $500, or both.
But that law does not mean simply dressing as a nun or priest for Halloween is automatically illegal. The statute specifically requires fraudulent pretense.
In many cases, impersonating a religious figure becomes legally significant because it is part of another alleged offense, such as fraud, identity theft, or a scheme to obtain money.
That distinction is particularly relevant to Bicknell’s lawsuit. The central issue is not merely that Silanskas pretended to be a nun. Bicknell alleges that the false religious identity and supposed messages from God were deliberately used to influence his financial decisions.
How Do Christians Know When God Is Speaking?
The dilemma at the center of Bicknell's story is an ancient one for Christians: How is a believer supposed to distinguish genuine spiritual guidance from a voice falsely claiming divine authority?
The Bible itself repeatedly warns Christians not to accept every spiritual claim at face value. First John 4:1 puts it particularly plainly:
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
In this context, “try” means to test or discern. The instruction assumes that claims of divine inspiration can be false, and that believers bear some responsibility for examining them rather than simply obeying whoever invokes God's name.
That is particularly relevant to Bicknell's allegations because the messages did not merely say that investing in American Heartland was a good idea. They allegedly borrowed the language and concepts of Christianity itself. The messages spoke of obedience, repentance, evil and divine instruction, while repeatedly referring to Bicknell, Silanskas and Wilhite as a chosen “triune,” a concept Bicknell says was modeled on the Christian Trinity.
According to the complaint, more than 500 “Today's Word” messages arrived over a six-month period in 2023 alone. Some instructed Bicknell to trust God's commands rather than his own calculations and plans. By 2024, Sister Catherine was allegedly telling him that his failure to comply represented spiritual disobedience, even as his money was running out and his family was trying to intervene.
That makes the alleged deception more than a case of someone pretending to be a nun. If Bicknell's allegations are proven, the mechanism that made the scheme work was his sincere belief that refusing these instructions might mean refusing God.
What Happens Next?
As of September 21, 2026, Bicknell v. Silanskas remains pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma.
Silanskas’s admission that he authored and sent the religious messages resolves one factual mystery that had surrounded the case, but many of the larger allegations remain contested.
No court has yet issued a final ruling finding the defendants liable for the alleged scheme, and attorneys for Wilhite and Hedrick deny that their clients participated in Silanskas’s religious impersonation.
Whatever ultimately happens in court, Silanskas's admission has answered at least one question that once surrounded the case: some of the divine guidance Bicknell received had a decidedly human author.
Christianity has warned about false prophets and counterfeit spiritual authority since its earliest days, but recognizing them can be considerably harder when the message is personal, familiar and wrapped in the language of sincere faith. If someone claims that God is telling you what to do, particularly when money, family or other major life decisions are involved, what should it take before you believe them?
