A Minnesota couple is accused of misusing nonprofit assets to fund “lavish lifestyles,” according to a lawsuit filed by the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office. 

The lawsuit is filed against Larry and Sharon Cook and their nonprofits, Real Believers Faith Center and Les Jolies Petites School of Dance, based in north Minneapolis. 

“[The Cooks] diverted more than $2 million in charitable assets from Les Jolies and Real Believers to fund lavish lifestyles, luxury travel, designer goods, and for-profit ventures masquerading under nearly identical names, while pretending to serve their communities,” the lawsuit reads. 

Larry Cook is the senior pastor at Real Believers Faith Center and called the lawsuit a lie. 

“It’s an absolute 1,000% fabrication of the facts,” Cook said on Tuesday. “It’s a fiction, and I’m glad we’re here to talk about it, because we do great work in the community.”

The Attorney General’s Office claims that over the course of about six years, more than $1.3 million in funds were misspent from Real Believers and approximately $800,000 from Les Jolies. The lawsuit says some of those funds were spent at Michael Kors, Louis Vuitton, at a hotel in London and to pay the Cooks’ homeowners association for parking fines and late fees. 

The lawsuit also accuses the couple of making false statements to the IRS and taking out loans that “served no charitable purpose.”

When the couple sat down with WCCO inside the church, they didn’t dispute the purchases and said they were all made for charitable purposes.

“I do get a salary for what I do at [Les Jolies], so they’re acting like we took everything that was for the nonprofit and spent it on ourselves, which is a total lie,” said Sharon Cook. 

As for the travel, the couple said those are ministry trips with church parishioners and each person paid their own way.

“[The Attorney General’s Office is] gonna have to answer when we get to the courtroom, because documents and truth don’t lie,” said Larry Cook. 

The couple got some media attention a few years ago when they bought a nearby crime-ridden gas station. The lawsuit says they used nonprofit funds to help cover the gas station bills, while the money made went into a for-profit bank account. 

The lawsuit also accuses the Cooks of failing to register with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office as required by law, as well as violating the Minnesota Nonprofit Corporation Act.

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office said a temporary restraining order is in place to protect the nonprofit assets from being diverted.

The outer edges of the Twin Cities are booming with new places to live. 

So far this decade, the Twin Cities metro has, on average, added about 17,000 housing units per year, according to data from the Metropolitan Council. That includes homes, condos and apartments.

If you go by total housing units added, at the top of the list is Lakeville, a city growing so fast it put a pause on accepting new building permits. It has added 4,861 units from 2020 to 2025.

It’s followed in order by Woodbury (4,271 units), Maple Grove (3,599 units), Rosemount (3,186 units), Cottage Grove (2,279 units) and Blaine (2,677).

“Those suburban edge communities have the land supply, and they have the infrastructure, and the connection to the metro,” Todd Graham, the Metropolitan Council’s principal forecaster, explained.

Space to add homes and infrastructure to handle the growth, all while staying within the metro bubble, is why developers are targeting those communities.

Cottage Grove has been adding about 287 homes a year this decade, but the mayor tells us of a new trend. 

“What’s changing is we are seeing additional multifamily apartments, higher density,” said Myron Bailey. “And then we’re putting a little bit more focus on some affordability options, especially around our business park.”

Which suburbs will grow the most in the future?

If you go by population, Blaine and Maple Grove are forecasted to add about 20,000 people each from 2020 to 2050.

But if you go by percentage, two communities stand out. Corcoran in Hennepin County is expected to more than triple its population from 6,185 in 2020 to 19,600 in 2050. Carver in Carver County will see its population nearly triple from 5,241 in 2020 to 14,900 in 2050.

“We’re planning for it in the City of Carver. We have a long-term financial plan, we have a strategic plan, we have a comprehensive plan,” said Carver Mayor Courtney Johnson.

For example, new builds will push the limits of Carver’s current water treatment plant sometime in the next decade. 

“We are already thinking about where and how we’re going to build a new one to expand our capacity to bring fresh water into homes,” she said.

Cottage Grove is building a second water tower right now on the west side of Highway 61, with plans for a third in the future. The city also has ample space to add homes and businesses.

Carver, meanwhile, has a smaller footprint, but it has an agreement in place with the neighboring Dahlgren township.

“When the landowners in that community are approached by developers for homes or commercial, they would then become part of the City of Carver, and then our boundary area would expand,” said Johnson.

Corcoran’s boundaries are the opposite of Carver’s. The town covers just under 36 square miles, making its land size similar to Maple Grove and Plymouth. Most of it still consists of farmland, prairies and wooded areas with home developments spread throughout.

A spokesperson for Corcoran told WCCO that new developments will be focused on the eastern third of the city, where growth can be best supported. That includes a new water tower and water treatment plant in the city’s northeast district.

With more neighborhoods and people come a need for more entertainment, dining and shopping. Bailey said that’s becoming apparent in his community.

“The biggest complaint that I get is we don’t have enough restaurants or retail in our community. So, that’s been frankly one of the things that I’ve been trying to work on,” said Bailey.

One element of growth that is particularly challenging for smaller towns is maintaining their small-town image. Johnson said much of Carver’s development is happening on their western edge, where farmland is plentiful. The downtown area near the Minnesota River, however, will keep its historic charm. 

“We have one of the largest contiguous areas on the National Register of Historic Places. That’s never going to change, and we’re working really hard to maintain that area and promote our historic downtown,” she said.

Corcoran is taking a similar approach, balancing the need for growth while preserving the city’s existing character. Being a rural community is part of the city’s identity, meaning growth will have to happen in a “thoughtful and intentional way.”

Closer to the heart of the metro, cities like Edina and Bloomington are projected to add thousands of households over the next several decades. There’s very little space to build new subdivisions and homes, but that’s not where the growth is expected to happen. 

“They identify that they have land supply available for transition to either high-density apartments or mixed-use neighborhoods,” said Graham. 

That includes rezoning land initially developed for commercial property to allow for apartments and condos. 

“In the Southdale area, you’ve seen that there are apartment buildings going up and there are plans for more of that,” Graham said.

To see how your community in the Twin Cities is projected to grow by the year 2050, click here.