A California pastor and former political candidate who’s accused of scamming longtime mates out of almost $240,000 by means of a number of schemes, is now going through as much as 220 years in federal jail after he was arrested on an 11-count federal grand jury indictment.
The pastor, Terrance Owens Elliott, 60, a.ok.a. “Tony Elliott,” of Crestline, was arrested Thursday, in line with a launch from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Central District of California. Every of the 11 counts comes with a statutory most sentence of 20 years in federal jail.
Elliott, who was most not too long ago listed because the pastor of The Ship of Zion Church in San Bernardino, has been charged with 11 counts of wire fraud which prompted his victims roughly $238,563 in losses.
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In a single scheme associated to a household belief, in line with a 13-page grand jury indictment returned on Feb. 26, Elliott satisfied one good friend recognized as “M.C.,” to place her inheritance cash right into a belief that he would administer purportedly to keep away from dropping her Medicare and Social Safety advantages. Elliott was named as a co-trustee of sufferer M.C.’s belief, “which listed sufferer M.C. and sufferer M.C.’s youngsters, specifically, victims V.H., W.L., and P.G., as beneficiaries of the belief,” in line with the indictment.
After M.C. signed the belief, Elliott stored the executed belief settlement, which was supposed to supply for M.C.’s monetary wants throughout her lifetime. The settlement additionally allowed for her funeral bills to be paid from the belief and any funds remaining after her dying to be handed on to her youngsters.
The pastor then opened a checking account within the belief’s title itemizing solely himself as a trustee and gave the financial institution a fraudulently modified copy of the belief settlement which gave him sole energy to make funds from the belief’s checking account.
Elliott then wrote checks and made on-line transfers to a church recognized as “Church A” — that weren’t permitted beneath the belief settlement. He additionally used the cash from that belief’s checking account to buy postal cash orders that have been used to pay the church’s lease and private bills, such because the restore of a Chevrolet truck, Nike sneakers, a piano, clothes, and an prolonged guarantee for a motorbike quantity to about $150,263.
From June 2021 to February 2023, Elliott was additionally allegedly concerned in one other scheme during which he suggested a sufferer listed as W.H. within the indictment about promoting a home that was occupied by renters. Elliott allegedly satisfied W.H. that he might keep away from paying a capital positive factors tax from the sale of the home by loaning M.C.’s belief $65,000.
The pastor agreed to repay the mortgage with a ten% annual curiosity however then did not honor the settlement after accumulating a number of signed clean checks from the checking account of W.H.’s company.
Elliott allegedly used one of many clean checks to make an unauthorized switch of $16,000 to Church A. and transferred $49,000 to the belief. He by no means repaid any a part of the $65,000 mortgage.
“Defendant Elliott satisfied sufferer W.H. to supply him with a number of signed clean checks from W.H. Company’s checking account, and as a substitute of transferring everything of the $65,000 to sufferer M.C.’s belief account, defendant Elliott used a kind of checks to make 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 the majority of the cash from sufferer M.C.’s belief on unauthorized bills that weren’t for the good thing about the belief’s beneficiaries, comparable to defendant Elliott’s private bills. By means of this scheme, defendant Elliott defrauded sufferer W.H.’s company out of roughly $65,000.”
In one other scheme from September 2018 to June 2021, Pastor Elliott falsely represented to nonprofit company A and Church B’s board of administrators that nonprofit company A owed cash to W.H. Company for companies rendered associated to a lawsuit towards Church B and nonprofit company A in line with the indictment. This false illustration prompted nonprofit company A to be defrauded of roughly $23,300.
“Defendant Elliott then properly knew, W.H. Company had carried out no work on behalf of both Church B or Nonprofit Company A, and Church B and Nonprofit Company A owed no cash to W.H. Company,” the indictment notes.
“Defendant Elliott prompted Nonprofit Company A to concern roughly 32 checks to W.H. Company, which defendant Elliott later deposited into W.H. Company’s checking account, a checking account that defendant Elliott managed. Defendant Elliott didn’t use the cash from the checks for Nonprofit Company A’s profit.”
Elliott, who as soon as served as a police chaplain and public security commissioner in San Bernadino, additionally campaigned in 2022 for a 2nd Ward Metropolis Council seat, in line with The Solar.
Tina Satterwhite, a former congregant of Elliott’s now defunct, Mt. Zion Baptist Church, detailed how her then pastor preyed upon her after the taking pictures dying of her son. She alleged that after Elliot moved to San Bernardino from a church in Los Angeles, he fleeced her of greater than $75,000 from the sale of her home in 2004. She mentioned he left her broke and homeless.
“He destroyed me. My non secular perception in God has wavered. It’s been hell for a very long time,” Satterwhite, a former corrections officer, advised the publication on the workplace of her then lawyer, Michael Scafiddi. “I used to be depressed, and (Elliott) took benefit of that. I used to be going by means of some very troubling issues.”
A federal chapter decide hit Elliott with a $75,166 judgment in that case in June 2014 after a five-day bench trial however Scafiddi mentioned the pastor has by no means tried to pay it.
“The man’s a whole scammer,” Scafiddi mentioned of Elliott in 2022. “We tried a number of instances to find him. We by no means might. Then I see an advert on Fb that he’s working for metropolis council, and, I’m like, ‘That is the man I’ve been attempting to get to pay on this judgment for years.’“
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