Faith-Based Security Headlines
These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.
Massive parish theft calls for more internal control, expert says
The Pillar reports that a Florida woman pled guilty to embezzling $775,000 from a Catholic parish.
In the article, Robert Warren, a retired IRS investigator and professor of accounting at Radford University recommended the following safeguards.
- Preventive Controls
- Separation of duties – including several people in financial transactions and record-keeping
- Detection Controls
- Reconciling bank accounts
- Taking an inventory of assets
In April, The Pillar reported Florida woman facing trial for $700k parish theft, which involved a different woman at a different church.
Related Item from the IRS:
- Former church employee sentenced to pay restitution and serve two years in federal prison for defrauding church out of more than 450,000 dollars (2023)
- District man sentenced to 78 months in prison for schemes to defraud small business pandemic relief programs and the Archdiocese of Washington (2022)
- Ex-pastor of Orange County church sentenced to 14 years in federal prison for orchestrating $33 million con that defrauded investors (2021)
Analyst Comments:
As the above items indicate, Faith-Based Organizations (FBO) are often victims of embezzlement. FBOs should consider implementing, or improving, preventive and detection controls.
FB-ISAO’s 11 March 2024 Daily Awareness Post (DAP) highlighted an embezzlement story where a California church administrator stole $350,000.
The DAP provided Smart Church Management’s 10 Practices That Safeguard Your Church Against Embezzlement – Smart Church Management.
The DAP also provided the Church Mutual’s Preventing Fraud And Embezzlement pdf.
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