A federal grand jury in North Carolina has charged Tony McElveen with two counts of identity theft and one count of bank fraud, accusing him of using his job at the bank to steal from customers. Tony is also a pastor at Greater Faith World Outreach Church, which is also known as the Full Gospel World Outreach Church in Florence, SC.
Pastor McElveen is accused of running a bank fraud scheme for around four months in the summer and fall of 2017.
Pastor McElveen allegedly stole around $107,000 in the scheme, using the proceeds to help pay off his mortgage and other expenses.
Pastor McElveen was a supervisor at a BB&T Bank in Rowland, North Carolina, when he stole the identities of two customers and took out two $50,000 Preferred Lines of Credit without their knowledge, according to the indictment.
Pastor McElveen took the money from the credit accounts and deposited it in the church accounts, the pastor also opened Visa and American Express credit cards with the stolen identities and in his church’s name, the indictment says.
If Pastor McElveen is convicted of the charges he’ll have to forfeit any property constituting, or derived from, gross proceeds obtained directly or indirectly as a result of said offense, or any property traceable to such property.
Pastor McElveen ran for mayor of Florence in 2016 and loss.
There have been many South Carolina pastors that have been in trouble with the law. One pastor got a teenage girl pregnant twice.
Another pastor was arrested after he was accused of choking a woman on church property.
