Popular worship leader and political activist Sean Feucht lamented in his 2016 book, Integrity: Character of the Kingdom, that “We, as a generation, have lost our integrity.”
Yet, a review of criminal and court records reveal that Feucht has a history of minor criminal offenses, including one in which he apparently tried to deceive law enforcement.
A detailed law enforcement report, obtained by The Roys Report (TRR), shows Feucht asked a friend to withhold key information from police. Then, when an officer asked Feucht about what he did, Feucht reportedly denied it. But the officer had seen text evidence, the report states, and Feucht eventually pleaded no contest to illegal hunting in a baited area.
The case stems from November 2017. According to the report from The California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Feucht was having turkey problems around the 3,200-sqare-foot home in northern California that he had recently acquired for nearly half a million dollars.
Records obtained from the Shasta County Superior Court show that Feucht reportedly bought a tripod feeder, filled it with corn (a common turkey bait), and used it to lure and kill a turkey. This was a violation of California law, which prohibits hunting game birds within 400 yards of a baited area.
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An anonymous individual reported Feucht to authorities, the report states. When Feucht learned that law enforcement wanted to speak to him, he reportedly sent a text to a friend, instructing him to meet the officers on Feucht’s behalf, but not to tell the officers about Feucht’s feeder.
When Feucht met with an investigating officer the next day, he claimed that he did not know that killing a turkey near a feeder was illegal, the report states. The report adds that when the officer asked Feucht why he had told his friend to keep the feeder a secret, Feucht told the officer he had never sent such a text. But according to the report, a game warden had already seen the text.
Feucht then told the officer that he wasn’t baiting turkeys and the corn in the feeder was for five wild rabbits he had released on the property, the report states. But the officer noted in his report that corn is a favorite turkey bait and usually bad for rabbits.
Feucht was charged with a misdemeanor. On January 29, 2018, he appeared before a judge for arraignment.
Court records show that a public defender was appointed at that hearing to represent Feucht in the case. Public defenders are appointed to represent indigent criminal defendants who inform the court that they cannot afford an attorney for their case.
Financial records show that Feucht received over $100,000 in compensation in 2017 from just one of his nonprofits, Sean Feucht Ministries.
According to court records, two months later, on March 23, 2018, Feucht pleaded no contest to the charge he had apparently tried to evade.
TRR reached out to Feucht for comment about the 2018 conviction and others we discovered, but he did not respond to our inquiry.
Other criminal offenses
The 2018 conviction for illegal hunting is just one of several minor criminal convictions Feucht has had over the past few years.
In June 2018, he was charged in Cumberland, Pa., with failure to maintain weeds on his property. The code requires that the violator be given notice and an opportunity to correct the violation before being charged. Feucht failed to correct and pleaded guilty in court two weeks later.
That same month he was charged a second time under the same code section. Feucht pleaded guilty to that in July 2018.
On December 11, 2018, Feucht also pleaded guilty to “Fail Cut/trim Trees Affecting Others Property.”
Financial and governance concerns with Feucht’s nonprofits
In addition to these criminal offenses, the Christian watchdog organization MinistryWatch has reported concerns about “the integrity of (Feucht’s) financial claims.”
For example, MinistryWatch noted that in 2020, Feucht’s nonprofit, Light a Candle, raised $19,320 for work in Iraq but used only $9,000 on program expenses. Yet, in a self-produced documentary, the nonprofit claimed it had spent $100,000 in Iraq that year, MinistryWatch reported.
In an email to TRR, MinistryWatch President Warren Cole Smith also expressed concerns about the excess money Light a Candle has been amassing:
In a single year, from 2019 to 2020 (the last year for which financials are available), Sean Feucht Ministries grew from less than $300 thousand to more than $5 million in revenue. It spent only about $1.1 million on ministry expenses. That means the ministry’s assets ballooned to more than $4.5 million. There is nothing wrong with growth, but it seems reasonable to expect that a ministry with more than $4 million in cash should be spending more money on the ministry it has promised to do.
Another red flag concerns the composition of the board of Sean Feucht Ministries. According to the nonprofit’s latest 990 IRS filing, its board has only three directors, one of whom is Feucht himself.
According to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, nonprofit boards should have at least five board members “to avoid a very small group from controlling the organization.”
Steve Baughman is a lawyer, musician, and part-time student at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He also is the author of Cover-Up In The Kingdom: Phone Sex, Lies and God’s Great Apologist, Ravi Zacharias.
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12 Responses
This statement from a Rolling Stone article sums it up nicely, “Sean has figured out how to monetize the evangelical industrial complex,” Smith says, describing a “perverse relationship between prosperity-gospel Christian ministries, political activism, and Christian nationalism.” He adds, “If you can draw crowds, you can make money.”
Perhaps Indian Hinduism is true after all and Sean Feucht is nothing more or less than the Second Coming of the doctoral dervish: Ravi Zacharias! If so, the right sleuth is on his trail in atheist Steve Baughman. You can depend on it: Franklin and Anne Graham Lotz won’t be warning us about this wolf in wolf’s clothing. I wonder if Sean’s last name is a typo or a euphemism . . .
James Lutzweiler
Archivist (1999-2013), Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
I agree with 99.9% of this article and Daniel your quote is spot on from Rolling Stone!
But the line from this article, “the 3,200-sqare-foot home in northern California that he had recently acquired for nearly half a million dollars.” $500k for a house in most regions of the US is not that outrageous, especially one that is 3200sqft. In fact, I would dare to say that in California a house of that size valued at that price is definitely a fixer upper! I am in escrow with my current home that is a fixer upper in California that is 1056sqft. and I’m potentially getting almost twice as that.
Another possibility is that the house is way out in the sticks in uninsurable wildfire country. I kind of sympathize with the turkey hunting, but not all the dishonesty, especially soliciting donations to charity and then lying about how they are used.
In SoCal, $500k will get you a 1000 sq ft condo. And that’s if you’re not anywhere near the ocean or mountains. $500k for 3200 sq ft sounds low even for North Cal.
And what about his other home in Dana Point, a beach city that’s one of the priciest parts of SoCal?
Grifters gonna grift. Sean Feucht does not believe any rules apply to him, but also is somehow always the victim, and in a way that he can fundraise off of. so gross.
Not a supporter of this guy at all.
But unmaintained weeds? Uncut brush? Sounds like he’s standing up to some fussy HOA or something.
Make me like him more. (I never thought I’d say that about this particular fellow)
1. You might like him less if he were your neighbor.
2. Don’t forget the lying to cops stuff.
“But unmaintained weeds? Uncut brush?”
Wildfire hazard.
Ok fair. If indeed that is the rationale for it.
As someone currently evacuated out of a wildfire zone, I concede your point.
I don’t know the details of this specific situation, but there are places – as you know – where letting your yard go native is not just an issue of how the neighborhood looks.
I hope everything works out well for you and your house!
Steve:
Another great piece of investigative reporting. Let it not be forgotten that you were one of the first (and bravest) to sound off about Ravi Zacharias. For that, you received a ton of vitriol but no recognition. It’s heartening to see you are not deterred. Please continue shining the light on the church.