IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Salem Media Announces New Podcast with Ben Taatjes and Jerrid Sebesta on the Senior Resource Podcast Network

Salem Media Announces New Podcast with Ben Taatjes and Jerrid Sebesta on the Senior Resource Podcast Network

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August 30, 2021 at 6:15 a.m.
LOS ANGELES — The former chairman of the board for a Christian Science church in Los Angeles faces the possibility of decades in prison at his sentencing Monday for the theft of about $11.4 million in church money . Charles Sebesta, an executive at Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, Los Angeles, could be sentenced to up to 60 years behind bars, and is expected to be ordered to pay about $13.4 million in restitution and fines, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The Huntington Beach man used the money on personal expenses, including the purchase of a house and a membership to Club 33 — an exclusive Disneyland dining club, prosecutors said. According to the DOJ, Sebesta stole a total of $11,438,213 from church assets and $34,032 from a private high school that also employed him. Prosecutors said Sebesta even looted royalties from a song whose earnings were bequeathed to the church. The song was not named. When Sebesta pleaded guilty, U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson said that “the church was stripped of everything.”
Sebesta was hired in 2001 as the church’s facilities manager and began to gain the trust of administrators and members. Four years later, he joined the church and served as its local chairman, controlling the church’s financial assets and operations. From 2005 to 2016, he directed the church to make payments to fake companies’ bank accounts that he had opened, according to papers filed in Los Angeles federal court. For at least 10 years, Sebesta falsely recorded the thefts in church records as donations, as well as environmental remediation and other payments to fictitious companies, which he named so they appeared legitimate, according to federal prosecutors. When the church sold a Hollywood Boulevard property in 2008 for more than $12 million, Sebesta allegedly took most of the proceeds for his personal use — including the purchase of a $2 million home. Sebesta faces sentencing enhancements for causing hardship to the fraud’s victim — the church — for using sophisticated means and for abusing his position of trust. It took the church about 15 years to unravel the scheme, which was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, according to prosecutors. Related links

Huntington Beach man faces 60 years in $11.4 million LA Christian Science church fraud

Press This Podcast: How WordPress is Helping People Get Back to Work with Jason Cooksey & Miles Sebesta

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February 4, 2020 at 4:52 pm
Charles Sebesta, a 54-year-old from Huntington Beach, now faces up to 60 years in prison after on Monday pleading guilty to bank and wire fraud charges for orchestrating the scam. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Sebesta joined the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist as a facilities manager in 2001. By 2016, he had worked his way up to chairman of the congregation, and used his position to slowly gain control of the church’s finance’s. Using fake bank accounts named after real businesses, Sebesta fooled church members into believing they were paying millions of dollars to their vendors. Instead, Sebesta pocketed most of the cash. He also hid some of the thefts as donations, including a fake $4 million gift to the Mother Church, the founding congregation of the Church of Christian Science in Boston. Prosecutors said Sebesta skimmed that money off the top of the L.A. church’s $12.7 million sale of it longtime Hollywood Boulevard location. In a statement Tuesday, Aliso Viejo-based representatives for a network of Christian Science churches across Southern California downplayed Sebesta’s role as chairman of the Los Angeles branch. Local members would have decided on his duties — the Church of Christian Science statement said branch churches are “democratically run and self-governed.”
With the funds, Sebesta purchased a $2 million mansion, a membership to Club 33 — a VIP club at Disneyland in Anaheim — and gifts for his wife, son and a female companion, according court documents filed when he was arrested in August 2019. Part of his sentence will include requiring Sebesta to pay back the money he stole. Church leaders said the L.A. chapter, which has existed for more than a century, is no longer active. “Our church community was stunned and saddened to learn about the misappropriation of funds at Fifth Church of Christ Scientist, Los Angeles,” representatives said in the statement. “As a Christian church we value honesty, integrity, and compliance with the law. Fraudulent conduct has no place.”
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SoCal Church of Christian Science: Local members ‘stunned, saddened’ by $11.5 million fraud scheme

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February 3, 2020 at 5:32 pm
The former chairman and facilities manager of a historic Los Angeles church pleaded guilty Monday to stealing millions of dollars from church members over a decade, using the money to finance buying an expensive mansion and exclusive club memberships for himself. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Charles Thomas Sebesta, a 54-year-old Huntington Beach resident, agreed to plead guilty to one count each of wire fraud and bank fraud for orchestrating the scheme to steal at least $11.5 million from the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, a longtime Hollywood-based branch of the Church of Christian Science. In court Monday, U.S. Central District Judge Stephen V. Wilson described Sebesta’s scheme as “looting” the church of everything it owned. “This wasn’t piecemeal,” Wilson said from the bench. “In the end the church was robbed wholesale.”
Sebesta — who appeared in the courtroom with short gray hair, in a white jail jumper covering a gray sweater, constricted by chains around his waist and ankles — was first indicted in August. He initially faced 250 years in federal prison for 13 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. With the two-count plea agreement, signed in January, Sebesta could be sentenced to a total of 60 years in prison. He also faces five years of probation, and must give back all the money he stole. In the plea agreement, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Sebesta “began to gain the trust of the Church and its members” after he was hired in 2001 as a facilities manager. For years, Sebesta worked his way up through the leadership of the dwindling congregation. By 2016, he was in control of nearly every aspect of the church’s finances. To hide his thefts, Sebesta wrote the church’s checks “payable to fictitious entities that appeared legitimate because their names were similar to real businesses.”
Sebesta owned the bank accounts for the fake businesses. He named them after the church’s vendors — Grainger, an industrial supply company, and Zurich International, an insurance company — to fool its members into thinking they were legitimate. All of that money, millions of dollars worth, then was directed to “the defendant’s wrongful personal benefit,” prosecutors said. The purchases included a $2 million mansion, a membership to Club 33 — a VIP club at Disneyland in Anaheim — and gifts for his wife, son and a female companion. At Club 33, Sebesta would host fancy gatherings with “high-profile entertainment companies, including professional sports teams, and their employees.” The sports teams or other companies were not named in the indictment. Some of the thefts were disguised as donations, such as when Sebesta took $4 million off the top of the church’s $12.7 million sale of its longtime Hollywood Boulevard home. Now effectively defunct, the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist for almost 40 years was housed in the sleek, modern mid-century building at 7107 Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. The church address now directs to a strip mall in the Fairfax District; other Church of Science congregations in the area were not aware of the Los Angeles chapter, and some said it no longer exists. With few members left, the church decided to sell the Hollywood Boulevard property in 2008. Sebesta shepherded that sale. The property is now owned by the hip, millennial-focused Mosaic Church . In an email to the church’s remaining members, Sebesta posed as the developer buying the property, prosecutors said. He told them $4 million from the sale would be distributed to the Church of Science’s founding organization, referred to as the Mother Church, as a donation. The Boston-based Mother Church never received that money, prosecutors said in the indictment. And instead of directing the rest of the purchase price of the building to the Los Angeles chapter’s coffers, Sebesta pocketed a “a significant majority” of the money, according to court documents. The transaction was a misstep that helped Secret Service investigators uncover the lengthy scheme, which began to crumble when the Mother Church noticed the missing $4 million donation promised to them. When officials there began investigating where their money went, Sebesta sent them letters posing as another Fifth Church member asking them to allow the local branch to look into the discrepancy on their own, “without distraction or interference,” according to the indictment. It still took until 2016 for church members to reach out to federal investigators about the scheme. Secret Service agents in Southern California then looked in to the case. Prosecutors have not said where the mansion was that Sebesta bought with the church’s funds. His female companion, unnamed in the August indictment, who received gifts as part of the First Church of Christ thefts was nevertheless mentioned as a co-defendant with Sebesta in another scheme, according to Valerie Makarewicz, an assistant U.S. attorney who spoke in Monday’s court hearing. In 2014, Sebesta and Christine Lynn Rowe, a 50-year-old from Huntington Beach who Los Angeles County prosecutors named as Sebesta’s assistant, were charged with stealing about $180,000 from Lay Mission-Helpers and Mission Doctors Association, a Catholic charity. Representatives of the Church of Christian Science in Southern California have not yet returned a request for comment on Sebesta’s guilty plea. Get the latest news delivered daily!

Huntington Beach man pleads guilty to scamming L.A.’s Fifth Church of Christ out of $11.5 million

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