In a news release, Coffina said Smith-DeJoseph allegedly stole $561,777 over a five-year period until March 2019, when she was overseeing the finances for St. Paul's Baptist Church in Florence Township, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Church secretary paid her bills - including her own wedding - with $561K she embezzled, cops say https://t.co/H0eUHKbdZX pic.twitter.com/95Hl3RGozw
— NJ.com (@njdotcom) February 11, 2020
According to the release, Smith-DeJoseph used the money to pay car loans, rent, credit card expenses, satellite television and mobile phone bills, hundreds of online purchases, and her wedding at a Burlington County venue, the newspaper reported.
"Trust. Trust. That's all I can say," St. Paul's pastor Fred Jackson told WPVI. "We as Christians like to believe we're trusting and we put our trust in other people and in God and sometimes that trust is misplaced."
Smith-DeJoseph filed a fraudulent income tax return in 2017, and did not file at all in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2018, NJ.com reported.
Jackson said new policies are now in place to prevent a recurrence, WPVI reported.
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