Ex-Chairman Of LA Christian Science Church Accused Of Embezzling $11M

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – The former chairman for a Christian Science church in Los Angeles was arrested Monday on allegations he stole a staggering $11.4 million from the organization.

Fifty-four-year-old Charles Thomas Sebesta of Huntington Beach was indicted by a federal grand jury on six counts of wire fraud, five counts of bank fraud and two counts of identity theft, the U.S. District Attorney's Office reports.

According to the federal prosecutors, Sebesta stole the money while he was chairman of the board for the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, and used it, among other things, to buy a home and procure a membership in Disneyland's exclusive dining club.

Between August 2006 and December 2016 he funneled money out of church accounts by writing checks to fake companies for which he had opened bank accounts under both his name and those of family members, prosecutors said.

Sebesta was hired by the Fifth Church of Christ in 2001 as a facilities manager and promoted to chairman in 2005, prosecutors say, which gave him control over its financial accounts.

In 2008, when the organization's historic Hollywood church building was sold for $12.8 million, Sebesta siphoned off a large portion of the sale money and then used it to buy a home with $2 million in cashier's checks, prosecutors said. He got away with it by recording the cashier's checks as donations to fake companies, the indictment reads.

That property, located at 7107 Hollywood Blvd. and now used by the nondenominational Mosaic Church, was declared a culturally historical monument by the L.A. City Council in December 2015.

In 2009 and 2010, Sebesta wired a combined $2.16 million to his personal tax account in order to trigger a refund from the IRS, the indictment claims. Sebesta also stole $34,000 from a private high school he was working at, the DA's office said.

In October of 2014, Sebesta agreed to pay $869,000 to settle an embezzlement lawsuit which was brought against him by the nonprofit group Lay Mission-Helpers for which he served as its director of development.

If convicted as charged, he faces a maximum sentence of 250 years in prison.