Daily Archives: November 24, 2009

WINDBER — The former treasurer of SS. Peter & Paul Orthodox Church on Hoffman Farm Road near Windber has been charged with stealing more than $40,000 in church funds through her nearly five years of employment there.

Leah M. Wonyetye, 70, of Dunlo faces four counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, two counts of theft by deception and four counts of receiving stolen property.

Eight of the charges are felonies.

“It is a lot of money,” said Richland Township police Detective Thomas Keirn. “Sadly, this is not that uncommon with churches and civic organizations. You need to make sure you have checks and balances.”

Leaders became suspicious earlier this year after learning the church was behind several months on some bills, Keirn said.

After identifying some shortfalls connected to Wonyetye’s reports, church leaders contacted police.

Richland investigators brought in an outside auditor to go over the records back to 2006, when Wonyetye took over as treasurer.

The audit detailed a history of missing deposits and double paychecks totaling $40,104.39.

Confronted with the auditor’s report, Wonyetye admitted to the thefts, court papers said.

She remains free on her own recognizance, with a preliminary hearing scheduled for Jan. 12.

“She is not a young woman,” Keirn said. “We did not incarcerate her, but she is going to have to figure out how she’s going to come up with this money. There is a chunk there.”

A youth pastor at a large church, arrested and charged with molesting a teenage girl, was the subject of Sunday’s sermon.

At the bustling Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, pastor David Hughes usually preaches the gospel, the good news. But Sunday, the news was bad.

“There is brokenness, anger and a lot of hurt. This is an ugly story,” Hughes told a sanctuary packed with several hundred worshipers for the 11:15 a.m. service.

The story broke Saturday when Coral Springs police arrested one of the church’s youth pastors, Russell Dion Lewis, 28, and charged him with custodial battery and 10 counts of lewd and lascivious molestation.

Police said Lewis molested a 14-year-old girl and tried to rape her. Investigators added that the contact between Lewis and the girl, even if it was consensual, was illegal because of the girl’s age.

Lewis was held Sunday in the Broward County jail on $20,000 bond.

Hughes, the senior pastor of the Southern Baptist congregation, made clear in his remarks Sunday that “a kid cannot give consent. You understand that.

“We are all about forgiving,” Hughes said. “But when it comes to our children, we’re pretty hard-nosed around here.”

Lewis, who lives two miles from the church, was fired Saturday after his arrest. Hughes told parishioners he decided to abandon the sermon he had planned and instead would directly address the news that had rocked the church at 400 Lakeview Dr., near Atlantic Boulevard and the Sawgrass Expressway. The church ministers to about 5,000 people each weekend through seven services.

“We are having a little family talk,” said Hughes, 47. “It has been a weird 72 hours. As your pastor, I’m sorry. This should be a safe place.”

The church has been in the news twice in the past two years. In 2007 it stirred controversy with a lecture series called “The Bare Naked Truth on Sex,” and then promoted the program with a billboard along Interstate 595 that showed two pairs of feet hanging off a bed.

In 2008 the church handed out $40,000 to parishioners in what was termed a “reverse offering.” Recipients were told to spend it on others as an act of generosity.

Garry and Yvonne Souffrant, both 33, who live in Davie, stood trial in Miami federal court on charges of conspiring to defraud banks and launder drug traffickers’ profits to buy more than a dozen residential properties in South Florida and Georgia from 2002 to 2008.

Garry Souffrant, pastor of God First Ministries in Miami Gardens, was also accused of recruiting his brother into the conspiracy. But Miami Fire Rescue Capt. Gamaliel Souffrant, 44, of Pembroke Pines, was acquitted.

Garry and Yvonne Souffrant used their family business, Progressive Real Estate of Broward Inc., to help drug traffickers buy homes and luxury automobiles, including a 2004 Rolls-Royce Phantom, according to federal authorities.

The couple acted as straw buyers for the drug traffickers, concealing the source of their tainted money to purchase the properties, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael “Pat” Sullivan said. They also diverted mortgage loans to fund the scheme and their personal expenses.

Sullivan said the conspiracy case, investigated by the IRS, FBI and Miami-Dade police, grew out of a Northwest Miami-Dade cocaine organization that gave them drug proceeds to buy the properties and cars. The drug ring’s leaders, Ali Adam and Graylin Kelly, have been convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison.