A South Carolina woman accused of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a church where she was formerly employed has been charged with tax evasion.
Officers from the South Carolina Department of Revenue arrested and charged Shelley C. Strickland, 55, with seven counts of tax evasion, according to an agency news release.
Strickland reportedly served as the financial secretary at First Baptist Church of Ware Shoals from 2018 to 2024 and in similar roles for other local churches and the Lakelands Baptist Association (LBA). Investigators allege she embezzled more than $445,000 from the church and converted it to her personal use. In addition, investigators said she stole $58,000 from the LBA.
"[Shelley's husband is] a pastor of one of our churches, so we were surprised and disappointed," LBA Missions Director David Little told The Baptist Courier in 2024 when the LBA first learned about the accusations of Stickland misappropriating funds. "When you steal from a church, it's bad. But when you steal from an association, you steal from all the churches in that association, and that's really hard to swallow."
South Carolina Department of Revenue investigators allege Strickland did not include that money as income on her South Carolina Individual Income Tax returns for those years. As a result, she evaded nearly $30,000 in South Carolina State Income Tax.
If she's convicted, she faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $10,000 count for each count.