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Minister Sentenced On Tax and Bank Fraud Charges

By Howard M. Friedman

The Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced yesterday that former pastor Otis Ray Hope was sentenced to 37 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, on criminal tax charges and for conspiracy to commit bank fraud. He was also ordered to pay over $2.4 million in restitution. Hope was hired in 1996 as the senior pastor for Montrose Baptist Church in Rockville, Maryland where he supervised the Montrose Christian School and the parish's "English as a Second Language" Program. Hope formed his own company to take over the ESL program, and diverted over $950,000 of student tuition payments to his own and his family's personal use. He also failed to pay taxes on those amounts. Separately he filed a false application for exemption from federal taxes for Shiloh Ministries, and fraudulently obtained a $1.75 million bank loan for a Conference and Retreat Center for Shiloh Ministries.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on August 05, 2009 (boomark / email).