Posted on 12/05/2014 5:56:22 AM PST by Gamecock
The former accountant for the Agape Family Worship Center has been indicted for embezzling more than $4 million from the church over a period of seven years, church officials said today.
The thefts were hidden in 900 separate transactions in which Gridiron would write checks to himself or arrange wire transfers, said Matthew Davis, a Texas-based attorney representing the church.
"As a church, we are trusting people," he said. "We hired a professional, certified public accountant who served us for many years and there was no reason for us to question his integrity in the past.
(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...
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**Gridiron would write checks to himself or arrange wire transfers**
I see the problem right there. In every church where I was involved in dealing with money we had serious checks and balances. No one person could write a check. All checks required at least two signatures. On large purchases a third person had to sign off on a purchase order or other document.
When it comes to money, no one should be trusted. Trust but verify.
Oh. And the accountant didn’t have access to the checking account.
A church is a collection of Sinners. Don’t trust anyone.
Our last church trusted the associate pastor and he used a rarely utilized credit card for personal use, and stole other funds. Paid some for daughter’s nursing school but also for porn on church computers......Nobody was watching over the books, that part anyway. His wife found the trail.
Anyone can be tempted and accountability is good for both sides. Churches most of all should know that but they most of all tend to turn a blind eye, at least in my experience.
It is not showing disrespect to anyone to institute a system of controls to prevent embezzlement. Anybody who might be offended by such a thing should be kept as far away from the money as possible.
” It is not showing disrespect to anyone to institute a system of controls to prevent embezzlement.”
Agree...this actually protects anyone involved in handling finances against accusation.
Usually the embezzler was given sole control over the finances of the concern, and in most cases the embezzler was a female. Much of the stolen money was spent on gambling and/or the usual expensive, luxury items.
I mentioned the preponderance of female embezzlers to my wife who promptly flew into a rage that I would accuse females of committing crimes when so many more males commit crimes. I guess I'll have to hide this news story from her.
Around twenty-five years ago in my old home town....they finally got city-water (don’t ask). So they decided with all this service business...they needed a clerk to mind the checks coming in each month. They hired one of city council guy’s daughter. She had one year of community college and was willing to work for roughly $1,200 a month. So around six years go by, and the state does a shocker...mandating an occasional audit by an outside source on all city water departments in the state.
Well....they come to realize that she was carving off roughly $6k a year. There came this big discussion....firing her, and political arguments arose. Finally, to appease everyone and let her stay....dad arose and agreed to pay back the whole amount. Then to appease the rest of the crowd....they agreed to audit the account yearly (figure at least $2k in costs). Since that episode...they’ve wasted over $40,000 in audit costs because they can’t trust the gal, but they won’t fire her.
I’m sorry, but we are going to have to start hanging some of the thieves in this country. There are too many of them which means they aren’t afraid of jail.
**Agape Family Worship Center **
Hmmm
At any rate, after many years of working at the school (she was getting on in years when I attended), the woman retired shortly after I graduated. She then bought a lot of property including agricultural land. Some people wondered how she could afford to spend large sums of money on so much expensive property when she didn't earn a huge salary while working for the school.
So the school had an auditor come in and check the books. The guy found out the woman had been embezzling (what she thought were undetectable) sums of money for many years.
The school refused to press charges, and the woman died not long after she was caught. I don't know what happened to the property and if the school ever got the money back.
“A church is a collection of Sinners. Don’t trust anyone.”
Lol, but sad. Perhaps grow up into Him and freely choose to be disappointed, burned, used, rejected, etc., by people? Seems like the only way. I find that my flesh hates that.
A church is a collection of Sinners. Don’t trust anyone.
Luke 19
46 Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.
People think it rarely happens, but I suspect it’s happening a lot more.
In the mid-80’s....I was assigned to Ramstein Air Base. Just down the road, was Sembach. They had a finance office on base, and some senior NCO ran the payments section. On a Monday, he didn’t show up at work and they went looking for him. He wasn’t home.
About a week into his disappearance...they decided to do some audit. From what they could figure...he’d stolen around $120k in the three years there. They didn’t go past that point, so you can suspect that he’d stolen at previous bases, and had accumulated a fair amount of money. As far as I know....they never found the guy and he just disappeared....probably off into the Med region.
Twenty years later, I noticed at another US base in Turkey....another finance clerk who’d stolen at least $100k. This time, an audit concluded this prior to the NCO disappearing.
#10 Check your accounts.... your wife might be embezzling from you : )
A Club I belong to has an annual internal audit. Several members are selected to review all expenditures, match them up with bills or other documents, matching all revenue with dues payments or other sources, etc. The sort of thing an auditor would do, but not as elaborate. I think it works pretty well, but maybe someone could figure out a way to game the system. It would take several conspirators, though. One person couldn’t do it.
Sounds like the DA is the one who needs to be fired. And the sheriff.
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