By Jim on
Church & Ministry
Church Finance

Unaka Avenue Baptist Church secretary gets 8 years for stealing $420,000

David Carper, the church’s assistant treasurer, testified the church became aware of the problem when the bank called and said the church account was in the hole. Ironically, he said, the check that bounced was a payroll check to Tramel. The find was the beginning of officials unraveling a long string of unauthorized credit card purchases and forged checks.

Discussion

Thu, 04/09/15

What I found interesting about this:

  • That the church hired her despite her history of criminal activity
  • The lack of financial controls (including that the Assistant Treasurer was clueless until the end.)
  • The amount she was able to steal in a short amount of time
  • The woman’s lame excuse: “an uncontrollable obsession”
  • The irony of how she was caught - her own payroll check bounced
  • The Judge’s comments: “There was no reason for anyone in the church to go to Victoria’s Secret or Parkway Wine & Liquor”

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Jim's Doctrinal Statement

Thu, 04/09/15

One person approves payments, a second signs the checks, a third balances the account, etc.

There needs to be a system of established controls in place to prevent this kind of stuff from happening…..and certainly to not continue for months or years!

My church adds to the mix an annual audit by a professional CPA firm. Since we took in about $5M in our last fiscal year, I’d hate to think of the damage that a system without strict financial controls could produce.

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ADDED: At the church I belonged to from 1980 to 2000, I was the church treasurer for the last several years. I did not have control of issuing checks though; that function was always handled by someone else. (That was one type of dual-control that we had established.)

Fri, 04/10/15

It strikes me as very interesting as well that (a) the woman blames her problems on mental illness, but (b) she continued to drink rather heavily. Alcohol is known to interfere with psychotropic medications.

Another thought; if she ran up $400k or so on credit cards, the church gave her something like Amex that doesn’t have a credit limit. Most credit card companies will put limits in for those who want them. Big OOPS there.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Fri, 04/10/15

Where did you read that she drank heavily?

Fri, 04/10/15

Mark

The article suggests that a significant portion of that $400k in credit card/other purchases was at Victoria’s Secret and a local liquor store. To get to enough lines in those credit card bills to draw the auditor’s notice would take either (a) some really, really top flight liquors (the stuff in the locked cabinet) or (b) being a lush.

Since most drinkers cannot really tell $20/bottle wine from $2000/bottle wine, my educated guess is that she is something of a drunk.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Fri, 04/10/15

…..is that even moderate drinking can be a really, really bad idea if you’re mentally ill and/or on meds. So whatever she did, it was about as smart as President Obama continuing to smoke for a decade after his daughter was diagnosed with asthma. Or perhaps more accurately, about as self-centered as the same.

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.