NEWS: U.S.
A Louisiana pastor admits to defrauding churches, parishioners and schools of nearly $900,000

A well-known Bap­tist pas­tor of New Orleans and Baton Rouge for more than 30 years has admit­ted to defraud­ing near­ly $900,000 from his church, hous­ing asso­ci­a­tions, parish­ioners and char­ter schools.

At a hear­ing by U.S. Dis­trict Judge Jay Zaney, Rev­erend Charles Southall III, 64, plead­ed guilty to mon­ey laun­der­ing charges on Tues­day, the Jus­tice Depart­ment said in a news release.

Pros­e­cu­tors said Southall, who head­ed the First Emmanuel Bap­tist Church in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, solicit­ed tithing and dona­tions from church mem­bers and stole them.

In one case, Southour received a $10,000 tithe from a con­gre­ga­tion in 2019 and then divert­ed the mon­ey for him­self, the state­ment said.

In anoth­er case, he said he had solicit­ed dona­tions from church mem­bers for char­i­ty and improve­ments to church build­ings for four years, and con­vert­ed $106,408 of his dona­tions into his account.

Southall also estab­lished the Edgar P. Har­ney Spir­it of Excel­lence Acad­e­my as a char­ter school in New Orleans and an affil­i­at­ed school in Baton Rouge.

Spir­it of Excel­lence received grants and loans, but the Baton Rouge school nev­er opened, and inves­ti­ga­tors say near­ly $221,000 was spent between 2013 and 2017 in col­lu­sion with Southall, dubbed Per­son A in court documents.

Pros­e­cu­tors say it was divert­ed to a bank account man­aged by

The church also owns a rental prop­er­ty, from which it divert­ed near­ly $150,000 into per­son­al accounts. He also sold church prop­er­ty, pock­et­ing more than $500,000, pros­e­cu­tors said.