Pa. woman gets 5 years’ probation for stealing $21K from church
A Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to five years probation for stealing $21,000 from a church where she had been serving as treasurer.
Cheryl M. Garnett, a 75-year-old resident of East Deer, was sentenced last Friday to five years' probation and ordered to pay $21,471 in restitution to Vermont Baptist Church of New Kensington.
Once the restitution is paid in full, the probation will be terminated, the sentencing order stated, according to the Pittsburgh-based Triblive.com.
Last year, Garnett was arrested and charged with stealing money from Vermont Baptist Church over several years, beginning in 2018.
According to police, Garnett had written numerous checks and withdrawn money from the church’s bank account via ATMs. She had personally signed the checks and was the only person who had access to the church's bank debit card.
In April of last year, church leaders reached out to authorities regarding suspicions they had about Garnett. She was subsequently charged in May 2023, Triblive reported at the time.
According to the complaint quoted by Triblive, when church officials confronted Garnett about the withdrawals, she reportedly responded by saying, “I guess I got a little carried away.”
Garnett eventually pleaded guilty to a theft charge, which allowed her to avoid going through a trial. A charge of receiving stolen property was dropped by prosecutors.
A small congregation, Vermont Baptist Church has a history of financial struggles and had to cease using their church building in East Deer in 2014 due to its crumbling infrastructure.
“It's bad,” said the Rev. Clifford L. Manley, an associate pastor and longtime parishioner of the church, in an interview with Valley News Dispatch in 2014. “It's really bad. I wouldn't give this building another 18 months.”
In 2015, they began using the campus of First Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Kensington for worship, having previously investigated a possible deal with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh.
According to a 2017 study by Lifeway Research, nearly 10% of Protestant pastors responded that their church had witnessed someone embezzle funds, with churches that have at least 250 members being slightly more likely than smaller churches to say this has occurred.
"Churches run on trust — but they also know people are imperfect and can be tempted," said Lifeway Executive Director Scott McConnell, as quoted in the report. "That's why safeguarding a church's finances is an important part of ministry."
