By LeoNardo Blair, Senior Reporter
A California pastor and broken-down political candidate who is accused of scamming longtime friends out of on the subject of $240,000 through just a few schemes, is now facing up to 220 years in federal penal complex after he used to be arrested on an 11-rely federal huge jury indictment.
The pastor, Terrance Owens Elliott, 60, a.okay.a. “Tony Elliott,” of Crestline, used to be arrested Thursday, in accordance with a begin from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. Each and each of the 11 counts comes with a statutory most sentence of twenty years in federal penal complex.
Elliott, who used to be most neutral no longer too long within the past listed as the pastor of The Ship of Zion Church in San BerNardino, has been charged with 11 counts of wire fraud which precipitated his victims approximately $238,563 in losses.
In one plot connected to a household belief, in accordance with a 13-page huge jury indictment returned on Feb. 26, Elliott convinced one friend identified as “M.C.,” to ascertain her inheritance money into a belief that he would administer purportedly to steer sure of losing her Medicare and Social Security benefits. Elliott used to be named as a co-trustee of sufferer M.C.’s belief, “which listed sufferer M.C. and sufferer M.C.’s kids, particularly, victims V.H., W.L., and P.G., as beneficiaries of the belief,” in accordance with the indictment.
After M.C. signed the belief, Elliott kept the accomplished belief settlement, which used to be purported to present for M.C.’s financial wants at some level of her lifetime. The settlement also allowed for her funeral charges to be paid from the belief and any funds final after her loss of life to be handed on to her kids.
The pastor then opened a financial institution account within the belief’s title checklist most efficient himself as a trustee and gave the financial institution a fraudulently modified reproduction of the belief settlement which gave him sole energy to invent payments from the belief’s financial institution account.
Elliott then wrote tests and made on-line transfers to a church identified as “Church A” — that weren’t permitted below the belief settlement. He also old the money from that belief’s financial institution account to aquire postal money orders that were old to pay the church’s rent and non-public charges, equivalent to the repair of a Chevrolet truck, Nike sneakers, a piano, clothes, and an extended guarantee for a motorbike quantity to about $150,263.
From June 2021 to February 2023, Elliott used to be also allegedly inquisitive about one other plot in which he informed a sufferer listed as W.H. within the indictment about promoting a dwelling that used to be occupied by renters. Elliott allegedly convinced W.H. that he might possibly well steer sure of paying a capital gains tax from the sale of the home by loaning M.C.’s belief $65,000.
The pastor agreed to repay the loan with a 10% annual passion but then didn’t honor the settlement after collecting just a few signed easy tests from the financial institution account of W.H.’s company.
Elliott allegedly old one in every of the easy tests to invent an unauthorized switch of $16,000 to Church A. and transferred $49,000 to the belief. He never repaid any segment of the $65,000 loan.
“Defendant Elliott convinced sufferer W.H. to present him with more than one signed easy tests from W.H. Corporation’s financial institution account, and slightly than transferring the entirety of the $65,000 to sufferer M.C.’s belief account, defendant Elliott old one in every of those tests to invent an unauthorized switch of $16,000 to Church A. Defendant Elliott knew on the time he transferred $16,000 to Church A, that sufferer W.H. didn’t authorize this switch,” the indictment notes.
“Defendant Elliott spent virtually the final money from sufferer M.C.’s belief on unauthorized charges that were no longer for the revenue of the belief’s beneficiaries, equivalent to defendant Elliott’s non-public charges. Thru this plot, defendant Elliott defrauded sufferer W.H.’s company out of approximately $65,000.”
In one other plot from September 2018 to June 2021, Pastor Elliott falsely represented to nonprofit company A and Church B’s board of directors that nonprofit company A owed money to W.H. Corporation for services and products rendered connected to a lawsuit in opposition to Church B and nonprofit company A in accordance with the indictment. This unfaithful illustration precipitated nonprofit company A to be defrauded of approximately $23,300.
“Defendant Elliott then properly knew, W.H. Corporation had performed no work on behalf of both Church B or Nonprofit Corporation A, and Church B and Nonprofit Corporation A owed no money to W.H. Corporation,” the indictment notes.
“Defendant Elliott precipitated Nonprofit Corporation A to danger approximately 32 tests to W.H. Corporation, which defendant Elliott later deposited into W.H. Corporation’s financial institution account, a financial institution account that defendant Elliott controlled. Defendant Elliott didn’t expend the money from the tests for Nonprofit Corporation A’s revenue.”
Elliott, who once served as a police chaplain and public security commissioner in San Bernadino, also campaigned in 2022 for a 2nd Ward Metropolis Council seat, in accordance with The Solar.
Tina Satterwhite, a broken-down congregant of Elliott’s now defunct, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, detailed how her then pastor preyed upon her after the taking pictures loss of life of her son. She alleged that after Elliot moved to San BerNardino from a church in Los Angeles, he fleeced her of more than $75,000 from the sale of her home in 2004. She stated he left her broke and homeless.
“He destroyed me. My spiritual belief in God has wavered. It’s been hell for a very long time,” Satterwhite, a broken-down corrections officer, instructed the newsletter on the field of job of her then attorney, Michael Scafiddi. “I was depressed, and (Elliott) took revenue of that. I was going through some very troubling issues.”
A federal economic damage mediate hit Elliott with a $75,166 judgment if that’s the case in June 2014 after a 5-day bench trial but Scafiddi stated the pastor has never tried to pay it.
“The man’s a total scammer,” Scafiddi stated of Elliott in 2022. “We tried just a few instances to detect him. We never might possibly well. Then I see an advert on Facebook that he’s running for metropolis council, and, I’m love, ‘Here’s the fellow I’ve been searching to procure to pay on this judgment for years.’“
Contact: leoNardo.blair@christianpost.com Practice LeoNardo Blair on Twitter: @leoblair Practice LeoNardo Blair on Facebook: LeoBlairChristianPost
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