Pastor who swindled $1M from congregants fights probation at Ohio Supreme Court

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Monday, March 10, 2025

A former Ohio pastor convicted of fleecing some $1 million from his church in 2010 and sentenced to a number of years in jail plus a interval of neighborhood management or probation he argues is past the state’s five-year restrict has taken his case to the state’s Supreme Court docket.

David Thompson, who led the World of Pentecost Church in Columbus from 1998 to 2007, was convicted of 21 felonies, together with partaking in a sample of corrupt exercise, theft and forgery in 2010, in keeping with Court docket Information Ohio, a service of the Workplace of Public Info of the Supreme Court docket of Ohio.

Thompson obtained a sentence of 5 years in jail for 19 counts associated to his crime, whereas he was supplied 5 years of neighborhood management for 2 of the 21 felonies. He was additionally ordered to pay the church $733,048 in restitution. His sentences had been scheduled to run consecutively.

He appealed his sentenced in 2011, court docket paperwork present, however solely his theft conviction and the quantity of his restitution had been decreased.

4 years later, in January 2015, Thompson utilized for and obtained a judicial launch from his jail sentence, however he was ordered to proceed paying restitution together with 5 years of neighborhood management as circumstances of his early launch.

On March 13, 2019, Thompson’s probation officer reported that he had violated the phrases of his neighborhood management by failing to make applicable funds towards restitution to the church, court docket paperwork present. On the time, the previous pastor had an excellent restitution steadiness of $621,377.50.

At a listening to to revoke his neighborhood management, the court docket famous that Thompson had been “underemployed” whereas on neighborhood management and had “not made the hassle.”

“The court docket particularly famous that, regardless of his minimal funds towards restitution, appellant ‘discovered cash’ to take a number of journeys, together with a visit ‘to Tennessee to get married and go to Myrtle Seashore for [his] honeymoon,'” court docket paperwork famous.

A trial court docket discovered Thompson must return to jail and end the remaining 11 months of jail time from his unique sentence on the 19 counts. The court docket additional dominated that he must serve the unique 5 years of neighborhood management for the two-count conviction after finishing the remaining 11 months of his preliminary sentence.

Thompson later mounted a sequence of appeals. In his final attraction, he argued that state regulation caps neighborhood management at 5 years. Since he already served 5 years of neighborhood management after his judicial launch in 2015, he should not be pressured to serve one other five-year time period.

The Tenth District upheld his newest sentence in a 2-1 choice, together with the second five-year neighborhood management interval. The previous pastor appealed the choice on the Ohio Supreme Court docket, which has agreed to listen to his case.