An Oklahoma City woman has been charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly embezzling more than $360,000 from the California church where she was an administrator for five years.
Chanell Easton, 36, is charged with stealing money from the food pantry and youth ministry at the unidentified Yuba City church from 2013 to 2018.
A federal indictment alleges that Easton opened five business credit card accounts in the church’s name without the church’s knowledge or authorization and used them, as well as a credit card issued to the church’s youth pastor.
She used them to make personal purchases at a hair salon, retail stores, online retailers, a vacation rental service, and concert venues and then used the church’s money to pay off the credit card balances.
She also is accused of transferring money directly from the church’s bank accounts into her own personal account to pay her credit card balance and cellphone bill and to buy new phones.
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The indictment says Easton also wrote checks to others and to herself for personal expenses, forging the signatures of the church’s treasurer or the head volunteer of the church’s food pantry.
Easton was indicted by a federal grand jury May 19 and charged with 22 counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert said in a statement.
If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine for each count of wire fraud and a mandatory two-year sentence on each count of aggravated identity theft.
This story originally appeared at MinistryWatch.
Anne Stych is a freelance writer, copy editor, proofreader and content manager covering science, technology, retail, and nonprofits. She writes for American City Business Journals’ BizWomen and MinistryWatch.
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2 Responses
I hope that, if convicted, she also has to pay restitution on top of the fines. Isn’t it sad & sorry that people find non-profits a great place to steal from? I am not surprised though. Thieves don’t care where their $$ comes from, as long as they don’t have to work for it.
Do the math. That’s, on average, $6000 a month for five years and nobody noticed. Like the AME church and stolen retirement money story. I have no sympathy at all. Where is your simple checks and balances. Where is the dual signature or quarterly review like every small business I ever worked at. Throw her in jail, yes. But as punishment to these churches who hire “godly people and pillars of the church”. to bad no requirement to pay the money back. Then maybe you churches will stop pretending you’ve hired godly people to handle the churches money. And as a reminder churches. It’s the people tithes you are loosing. Remember Olsteens church lost thousands of dollars and was found in a bathroom wall. Yeah that was another example of “godly people” handling the bucks.