TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2005
D.A. BROWN: FORMER PASTOR ORDERED TO
PAY FULL RESTITUTION
FOR STEALING OVER $31,800 FROM QUEENS CHURCH
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that the former pastor of the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church in Jamaica, Queens, has been ordered to repay more than $31,800 in stolen church funds which he used to pay for personal expenses such as car expenses and vacations.
District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant admitted to embezzling over $31,800 from the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church for his own use while serving as its pastor. The defendant led the congregation for over three decades and his conduct represents a gross betrayal of trust of his parishioners who looked to him for spiritual guidance and moral leadership. He will now be required to pay back every penny that he admittedly stole.”
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Reverend Charles Betts, 68, who currently resides at 1407 Gulf Stream Circle in Brandon, Florida. Reverend Betts served as pastor of Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church, at 114-44 Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, from 1971 until his resignation in January 2003. He pled guilty on July 20, 2005, to Grand Larceny in the Third Degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Barry Kron who earlier today imposed a sentence of five years’ probation and ordered the defendant to pay full restitution in the amount of $31,806.21 to the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church and has executed a confession of judgement.
The District Attorney said that an investigation began in January 2003 when the church received in the mail a bank card in the name of Anna Lenore Kilpatrick, the pastor’s former administrative assistant. The church conducted an audit and, after uncovering irregularities in the church’s accounts, made a complaint to the District Attorney’s Economic Crimes Bureau.
District Attorney Brown said that Ms. Kilpatrick and Barry Kilpatrick, her husband, a sheet-metal mechanic, both 48, of 38 Holloway Street in Freeport, New York, were also charged in the scheme. The Kilpatricks are awaiting trial on charges of Grand Larceny in the Second Degree and Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree. Their next court date is November 7, 2005, in Queens Supreme Court.
The investigation was conducted by Detective Robert Reed of the New York City Police Department’s 113th Precinct Detective squad under the supervision of Lieutenant Michelle Kaiser, Squad Commander, and Forensic Accountant James Dever of the District Attorney’s Economic Crimes Bureau under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys Gregory C. Pavlides, Bureau Chief, and Diane Peress, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Peter A. Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Linda M. Cantoni.
Assistant District Attorney Pavlides prosecuted the case under the supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney Cantoni.