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Louisiana Pastor Pleads Guilty to Stealing Nearly $900,000 From Church and School

A renowned Baptist minister in Louisiana pleaded guilty this week to stealing nearly $900,000 from his church, its rental properties and a charter school, using schemes that personally enriched him as he defrauded his parishioners of their donations and deceived tenants and educators, the Justice Department said.

Federal prosecutors said that the minister, the Rev. Charles Southall III, who wields far-reaching influence as the head pastor of the First Emanuel Baptist churches in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, where elected officials and police chiefs have been known to worship, pleaded guilty to a money-laundering charge on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Charles Southall III

“In total,” the Justice Department said in a news release, “Southall obtained approximately $889,565.86 through his fraudulent schemes.”

Mr. Southall, 64, who has been the executive pastor at First Emanuel Baptist for more than three decades, agreed to repay $687,000 to First Emanuel, $85,000 to Spirit of Excellence, the charter school, and about $110,000 to others who were victimized, the Justice Department said. He will face a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced by Judge Jay Zainey on Jan. 17.

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The guilty plea and corresponding charging documents highlighted how connected Mr. Southall was with the predominantly Black community he had long preached to, serving as pastor, educational leader and, essentially, landlord to hundreds in a region known for its close-knit nature. He also has ties to prominent figures in the state; on his church’s website, a video link shows Gov. John Bel Edwards of Louisiana praising the pastor.

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A range of people were affected by Mr. Southall’s schemes from about 2013 to 2020, prosecutors say: He diverted one parishioner’s $10,000 tithe in 2019 to his own use; he solicited multiple donations from another parishioner, promising that it would be used to improve the New Orleans church building, and pocketed more than $106,000 from that parishioner’s donations.

Mr. Southall also profited from rental properties owned by the church, diverting about $150,000 in rental payments to his personal accounts and also placing more than a half-million dollars from sold properties in his accounts, the Justice Department said.

In 2013, Mr. Southall, a board member of the Spirit of Excellence Academy, secured funding to create a new charter school in Baton Rouge, but the school never opened, prosecutors say. Still, he had hired a person, who is not named in court records, and paid them about $220,600, all of which was placed in an account that Mr. Southall and the individual controlled, the Justice Department said. {snip}

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