.- On Tuesday, a Louisiana pastor pleaded guilty to stealing $890,000 from his church, reports Christian Post.
Minister Charles Southall III, a 64-year-old pastor of First Emanuel Baptist Church, could be sentenced to a decade in prison for the crime.
The pastor is accused of using donations and tithes for personal expenses. He also siphoned off about $150,000 of income from church rentals and property sales and used it for private purposes.
Southall also used money coming into the account of a church-owned academy. The pastor and others created the Spirit of Excellence Academy to offer a public school in New Orleans and received grants to launch a similar school in Baton Rouge in 2013, yet this institution never opened.
As part of his guilty plea, the pastor agreed to pay restitution, in the amount of $85,000, to the academy; $687,805 to churches; $10,000 to an unidentified victim; and another $106 thousand to a second unidentified victim.
The religious leader disputed some of the reports through a statement in a video posted on his Facebook account.
Likewise, he said that it was not money laundering, but “(…) Something that went against the banking laws to which I declare myself. Because they said it was illegal for me to move money from an account that I have, to another account that I have.”
The pastor said that the plea agreement arose after some evidence disappeared, adding that these files are false.
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