Curtis Frank Lemons, 68, a former assistant pastor in California, was sentenced to two years in state prison for stealing $200,000 from New Progressive Christian Baptist Church in Oxnard while its founding pastor, Jesse James Taylor, was gravely ill. The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office announced the sentence on Friday.
Lemons committed the theft in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was working as the assistant pastor when he wrote himself a $200,000 cashier’s check from the church’s bank account in December 2020. At the time, Pastor Taylor was months away from his passing.
“This is a sad case. Mr. Lemons stole from a vulnerable victim at a vulnerable time,” said Senior Deputy District Attorney Howard Wise. “The patriarch of the church was near death when this happened at the onset of COVID.”
Lemons pleaded guilty in April to two counts of grand theft and one count of money laundering. Police investigation revealed Lemons used the stolen funds for personal expenses, including dental work, airline tickets, a new phone, a vehicle, and property in Tennessee, rather than donating the money to charity as he claimed.
Lemons, formerly of Camarillo, California, now resides in Atoka, Tennessee. Besides his prison sentence, the court ordered him to pay $200,000 in restitution to the church.
Pastor Jesse James Taylor died in August 2021 at age 87. The church community remembered him as a “visionary and organizer” and a “great man of God.”
