Pastor Richards is a mythical character in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
Description[]
Pastor Richards is a reactionary priest, inspired by 80's preacher Jimmy Swagart. Richards is the head of the Pastor Richards Salvation Statue Organization, a group which plans to raise enough money to build a statue of Pastor Richards himself and launch it into space. The organization proclaims to grant salvation to the donors, this claim was later revealed to be a fraud. One of his controversial talks include his interview with Maurice Chavez for VCPR;
“ | This 50 story statue will be able to deflect alpha, gamma, and beta radiation. The day is coming, and coming soon, when the Artificial Suns will rain down to punish the degenerates of this city. But you can save yourself. The Pastor Richards Salvation Statue will be a completely self-sufficient community. We have canned food rations, private living quarters, and enough supplies to survive happily the predicted 40,000 years of nuclear winter. In phase 2, and with funding from NASA, we will equip this massive statue with rockets. So when the poopy hits the proverbial fan, we will load up the statue with all of the people who saved themselves through generous donations, blast into space, and colonize Saturn with a race of morally correct, affluent people ruled by me. | ” |
Richards has since been attempting to bribe officials at NASA for rocket technology. It's likely that Richards is a conspiracy theorist and false prophet. His book Heal based on salvation claims was completely fabricated and mainly gained negative reviews. Another strange fact can be noted that Richards wears a purple tie with a cross on it, it's plausible that it is related to his false prophet image. Richards' artwork is also featured in the Religion section of the Vice City manual.