{"id":268381,"date":"2010-02-02T21:29:23","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T02:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a854c22a970b"},"modified":"2010-02-02T21:29:23","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T02:29:23","slug":"compton-pastor-to-be-sentenced-in-grand-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/268381","title":{"rendered":"Compton pastor to be sentenced in grand theft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The former pastor of a Compton church pleaded no contest Tuesday to one count of grand theft after he was accused of diverting more than $800,000 in offerings from his congregation, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>Eugene Joshua Sims, 48, who was pastor of Double Rock Baptist Church, will be sentenced to a year in county jail and five months of probation, the Los Angeles County district attorney&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors are asking that Sims repay the more than $800,000 that he embezzled from church members while serving as their pastor, according to the district attorney&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>Sims allegedly deposited the money in a private bank account and then threatened members not to say anything during sermons after questions were raised, the district attorney&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p>Sims entered his plea in Compton Superior Court as his preliminary hearing was set to begin. In exchange for his plea, one felony count each of dissuading a witness and money laundering will be dropped when he is sentenced March 19, the district attorney&#8217;s office said.<\/p>\n<p>Sims was ordered to stay away from Double Rock church while he is on probation, but he can preach and perform services at other churches, according to the district attorney&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Robert J. Lopez<\/p>\n<div id=\"refHTML\"><\/div>\n<p><input id=\"gwProxy\" type=\"hidden\"><\/input><input id=\"jsProxy\" onclick=\"jsCall();\" type=\"hidden\"><\/input><\/p>\n<div id=\"refHTML\"><\/div>\n<p><input id=\"gwProxy\" type=\"hidden\"><\/input><input id=\"jsProxy\" onclick=\"jsCall();\" type=\"hidden\"><\/input><\/p>\n<div id=\"refHTML\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The former pastor of a Compton church pleaded no contest Tuesday to one count of grand theft after he was accused of diverting more than $800,000 in offerings from his congregation, authorities said. Eugene Joshua Sims, 48, who was pastor of Double Rock Baptist Church, will be sentenced to a year in county jail and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4622,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4622"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}