Eight leaders of a Georgia-based church have been indicted for swindling more than $30 million from multiple banks and an untold number of U.S. veterans.

The widespread fraud scheme was operated for decades by leaders of the House of Prayer Christian Churches of America (HOPCC), the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Georgia in a press release. The leaders allegedly targeted members of the U.S. military for indoctrination and then “exercised extreme control” to gain money from hundreds of congregants for years.

The church leaders were arrested Sept. 10 on 26 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud, and tax offenses. For years, former members have decried the church as a cult.

Last week’s arrests followed after the FBI agents raided the $1.4 million mansion of HOPCC founder “Rony Denis,” the Augusta Chronicle reported.

Denis, whose true name and age are unknown, first started the church and its affiliate House of Prayer Bible Seminary (HOPBS) in the early 2000s, according to the Miami Herald. Denis allegedly stole his identity in 1983, then used it to become a citizen in 2002.

Denis’s ministry is based in Hinesville, Georgia, near Ft. Stewart, the largest military installation east of the Mississippi. He operates between 10 to 12 churches near military bases in at least five states, the Miami Herald said. (HOPCC is not connected to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, which was investigated by The Roys Report (TRR).)

Denis was arrested for conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and aiding and assisting in filing a false tax return, according to prosecutors. Other leaders arrested Wednesday include:

• Anthony Oloans, 54, of Hinesville;
• Joseph Fryar, 51, of Hinesville and Martinez, Georgia;
• Dennis Nostrant, 55, of Hinesville;
• Gerard Robertson, 57, of Hinesville;
• David Reip, 52, of Hinesville;
• Marcus Labat, 42, of Hinesville;
• Omar Garcia, 40, of Palm Bay, Florida.

 
A day later, another pastor connected to HOPCC was indicted for sexually abusing a minor.

Bernadel Semexant, 35, was charged with enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, sexual abuse of a minor, transfer of obscene material to a minor, receipt of child pornography, and possession of child pornography.

Semexant, from Hinesville and Savannah, Georgia, worked as a pastor at multiple HOPCC locations across the country.

The FBI is urging any other victims of fraud schemes or of Semexant to reach out via the FBI website at fbi.gov/HOPCCVictims.

“The defendants are accused of exploiting trust, faith, and even the service of our nation’s military members to enrich themselves,” said Paul Brown, an Atlanta-based FBI agent in a statement. “This indictment makes clear that using coercion, manipulation, and fraud under the guise of religion will not shield wrongdoers from accountability.”

TRR reached out to HOPCC for comment but did not hear back prior to publication.

Swindling church members

According to Wednesday’s indictment, HOPCC leaders manipulated church members with intimidation, manipulation, and forced obedience.

They coerced member marriages and divorces, pressured people into divulging personal information, and forced others to live in properties that funneled money back into the pastors’ pockets. 

Church members were kept under control by being forced to attend daily online meetings, according to the Herald. If members needed to miss a meeting, they had to ask Denis or another leader for permission.

The ministry leaders reportedly recruited military personnel to use their state-funded education benefits to enroll in the church’s seminary. Once enrolled, leaders manipulated the personnel’s Veterans Administration (VA) benefits to “funnel money into church-controlled accounts,” prosecutors said.

Leaders — who were said to use the funds to pay off personal credit card bills — allegedly disguised these payouts as “expense reimbursements” or “love offerings.”

If members left the church, they landed on a list of “ex-HOPCC traitors.” Contact with ex-members was restricted, as well.

Stealing from banks, veterans’ organization

Denis and his church leaders have operated two primary types of fraud schemes, prosecutors said.

The first, which lasted from 2011 to 2022, was a religious exemption from Georgia state regulators for the church’s seminary, which had two locations in the state. While this exception mandated that HOPBS would not receive federal funds, the ministry applied for and accepted VA education benefits.

The seminary then submitted false paperwork to Georgia stating that it did not receive any federal funds. HOPBS subsequently received more than $3 million in education benefits in Georgia, and then another $23.5 million for five locations outside the state, according to prosecutors.

The scheme enriched “the defendants while exhausting some veterans’ benefits, often without students completing their programs,” prosecutors added.

Also, as reported previously by TRR, the seminaries kept veterans enrolled in classes on paper while providing “no marketable training” and “no actual education.”

The other fraud scheme was a long-running conspiracy started by Denis in 2004 to defraud financial institutions by recruiting church members to serve as “straw buyers” in real estate transactions. The buyers would conceal their true identities to falsify loan applications and closing documents.

Church leaders allegedly used forged powers of attorney and created limited liability corporations to buy and transfer properties.

Leaders would then convert these properties into rental properties, often renting them out to church members. Prosecutors reported that between 2018 and 2020, the properties generated $5.2 million in rental income, prosecutors said.

While the income went to the leaders, the straw buyers were left with damaged credit and foreclosures.

Along with this, prosecutors noted that Denis filed false tax returns between 2018 and 2020.

Years of Controversy

Allegations against the ministry have been mounting for years. In 2022, the FBI conducted multiple raids of HOPCC buildings after the advocacy group Veterans Education Success urged the government to look into the church. (The church posted its own video of a June 23, 2022, raid, calling it “video footage of the FBI trashing Christians.”).

Former church members have also been speaking out about the church. Ex-member Taiana Moreno, who left HOPCC in 2021, called the church a cult. Leaders told her that she couldn’t attend public school, she said last week.

“At its core it was a cult that was a real estate (and Veterans Affair) scam,” she told WSAV-TV, an affiliate of NBC. “They were just demanding more and more money out of us, and they were funding all these so-called missionary trips and asking for the members to constantly donate.”

In 2022, former member Elizabeth Biles told the Augusta Chronicle that she gave the church her entire $400,000 life insurance plan from the military.

“We were all obedient to the pastors because we were taught and trained to obey ‘them that have the rule over us,’” Biles said, referring to Hebrews 13:17. “Pastors have complete control over every aspect of our lives, even our finances. They asked for everyone’s income, and they had to tithe 10 percent of everything or otherwise you were considered ‘stealing from God.’”

Liz Lykins is a correspondent covering religion news for The Roys Report, WORLD Magazine, and other publications.