A former pastor who stole roughly $1 million from his church is taking his case to the Ohio Supreme Court to fight the probation stipulations in his sentence. David Thompson, who served as pastor of World of Pentecost Church in Columbus from 1998 to 2007, was convicted in 2010.
Through his control of two of the church’s accounts, Thompson used church offerings to pay off personal credit cards and to support a lavish lifestyle while never claiming more than $44,300 on his annual income tax returns.
Thompson also gave false financial reports to church members, took out mortgages against the church property without telling the congregation, and obtained one loan with a fraudulent document.
In 2010, Thompson was found guilty on 22 counts, including nine counts of money laundering, seven counts of filing false or incomplete state income tax returns, three counts of tampering with records, one count of theft, one count of forgery, and one count of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity.
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“The biggest casualty was not financial,” Doug Girton, the pastor who succeeded Thompson, said at the time of the conviction. “A lot of people lost faith.”
“A lot of healing has to be done on both sides,” Girton added. “The biggest part of forgiveness is getting it out of our hearts.”
Following his conviction, Thompson faced up to 90 years in prison. However, he was given five years in prison and ordered to pay $733,048 in restitution.
Thompson was also required to serve five years of community control after completing his prison term, and he was assigned to serve 500 hours of community service, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
Thompson was let out of prison 11 months early in January 2015 on a judicial release. However, he was placed back into custody in 2019 after failing to make adequate progress on restitution.
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While he had lived under community control during his judicial release, a judge ruled that the five-year term of community control that accompanied his original sentence would begin upon his second release from prison.
