From the County Jail in this small town in eastern Oklahoma, Mr Finbarr Ross has claimed that he is innocent of the fraud charges on which the RUC is trying to extradite him from the US to face trial in Northern Ireland.
In an interview with The Irish Times - his first since his arrest six weeks ago - Mr Ross said that as far as he is concerned the liquidation of his company, International Investments Ltd (IIL), following its collapse in 1984, had been "in my mind closed years ago".
The Cork-born former financier, who has now become an ordained minister in the Light of Christ Community Church, was speaking by telephone from the jail where he has been detained since his arrest by FBI agents at the church headquarters about 30 miles away.
He said that he was shocked to learn that he was being sought by the RUC in connection with the collapse of IIL with debts of £7 million. "I was not the beneficial owner when ILL went into liquidation," he said.
The RUC is seeking his extradition to face 41 fraud-related charges but Mr Ross said these were "not true".
"I was not involved at the very end and was not involved when it crashed. I was totally out of it and was not part of the proceedings."
Asked how he felt during his imprisonment, Mr Ross (52) said: "It's all in the hands of God. . .they can only imprison my body."
The telephone conversations were interrupted regularly by a voice saying that the call was being made "by an inmate in a correctional facility".
Mr Ross said that reports that he had money from IIL stashed away were ludicrous. He said that after some of his investments in Texas collapsed, he and his son were destitute and had to seek refuge in a church in Dallas for six months.
He claimed that many things he was said to have done in Gibgate, a book on IIL by private investigator, Mr Billy Flynn, had not happened.
He said he would have sued two Irish newspapers for things they had written about him "if I had the money".
He claimed he had talked perhaps twice to Mr Flynn but had not told him anything. Asked if he would try to rebut the charges in the book, Mr Ross said: "Maybe sometime I will."
But he added: "I have no records now to prove I am innocent."
He said that in 1994, when he moved to the Sparrow Hawk mountain-top headquarters of the church to train as a minister, "I threw out everything I had".
Mr Ross blamed Ulster Unionist MP, Roy Beggs, for influencing the RUC to pursue him years after the collapse of IIL. "I think a lot of this is political with Beggs."
Mr Ross did not refer to the fact that many of the investors who lost their savings in the collapse of IIL are from Northern Ireland and may have appealed to Mr Beggs to take up their case.
Some 1,200 investors are believed to have been effected by the collapse of the company.
Mr Ross said that Mr Flynn had offered to help him and fly him back to Ireland if he would provide information about seven persons, including solicitors, that Mr Flynn was investigating. He also claimed that Mr Flynn now accepted that he (Mr Ross) did not have any money.
Mr Ross said that he had some information on some of the people that Mr Flynn was interested in but he was dubious whether Mr Flynn could give him any help in this extradition case.
Mr Ross said that if he was freed he would go back to his ministry of healing and working for the Light of Christ Church which he describes as "esoteric Christianity".
He recalled that in 1985 when he was living in Heuston, he was visited by Mr Declan Collins, a lawyer dealing with the liquidator, Mr James Galliano. Mr Collins offered him an agreement which he signed. Certain assets which Mr Ross was managing "were handed over" including proceeds from his house in Shinrone.
"I and Declan Collins shook hands. He took the agreement back to be signed by Galliano who never signed it." But Mr Ross says that he heard nothing back and he thought "everything was OK".
