A pastor in Charlotte, NC identified as Frank Jacobs, 51, appeared before a U.S. Magistrate Judge and plead guilty to tax and wire fraud on January 5, 2022. Pastor Frank filed a false tax return and used fraudulent information to obtain a COVID-19 relief loan.
According to filed plea documents from at least 2009 to 2018, Pastor Frank was the Pastor of the Rock Worship Center Church in Charlotte, NC and from at least 2019 to 2021, Pastor Frank was the Pastor of Quest Church, also located in Charlotte, NC.
Filed documents show that, for tax years 2009 through 2013, and 2015 through 2017, Pastor Frank failed to file timely U.S. Individual Income Tax Returns, even after he received correspondence from the IRS in some of those years about the need to file and pay taxes.
Pastor Frank did file a tax return for tax year 2014, but, as he admitted in court the pastor both under reported his income on the returns he filed and failed to make a payment to the IRS for any tax liabilities.
On April 22, 2020, Pastor Frank filed on behalf of Quest Church a fraudulent application to obtain disaster related loan benefits in the form of a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan.
The PPP loan program, sponsored by the United States Small Business Administration (SBA), was expanded under the CARES Act to provide support for small businesses to remedy economic harm caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.
Pastor Frank admitted in court that the documents he submitted as part of the application process for the PPP loan contained information that was false and inaccurate.
For example, Pastor Frank claimed that Quest Church paid wages totaling more than $135,000 to five employees, from which federal income taxes had been withheld, when in fact Quest Church never reported any payments of any wages to the IRS for the corresponding calendar year, nor did it pay any withholding taxes on such income.
