Tulsa Pastor Pleads Guilty to Embezzling More Than $500K

AME guidance recommends multiple signers on church bank accounts.

Tulsa pastor Keith Mayes pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax evasion and bank fraud after embezzling about $500,000 between 2022 and 2025.

Mayes, 63, was hired as senior pastor of the historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 2021.

Vernon AME was founded in 1905, and much of it was destroyed during the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, when 35 to 40 blocks of the Greenwood area of the city were destroyed. The church’s basement survived, and the current sanctuary was completed in 1925.

Photo of Vernon AME by G. Edward Johnson via Wiki Commons / Insert of Keith Mayes (photo via Facebook)

As senior pastor, his responsibilities included overseeing church finances and managing church donations, collections and disbursements of funds, according to the Justice Department.

After taking the position, Mayes opened a bank account in March 2022 for “administrative expenses.” He was the only authorized signer on the account and had the statements sent to his home address. He then deposited contributions from members and other charitable organizations into the account.

A member made a stock donation valued at $365,000 to the church. Mayes opened a brokerage account to receive the stock transfer, then liquidated the stock and deposited the proceeds into the “administrative expenses” account.

Mayes used most of the embezzled money to finance a gambling habit, purchase firearms and pay other personal expenses.

He did not report the illegally obtained income to the Internal Revenue Service, which left him owing $205,000 in taxes.

According to the plea agreement, Mayes admitted he abused his position of trust and agreed to pay restitution of $503,000 to Vernon AME for its losses and $205,000 to the IRS. He will also forfeit firearms purchased with the illegal proceeds.

Mayes has not yet been sentenced but could face up to 35 years in prison on the bank fraud and tax evasion charges.

The denomination’s 2024 General Conference proposed allowing local churches to establish a Commission on Internal Audit, noting that the existing Doctrine and Discipline had “no requirements for systematic auditing of the church records.” However, the proposal does not appear among the legislation passed by that conference.

In a 2023 article in The Christian Recorder, certified public accountant Cynthia Gordon-Floyd, encouraged churches to implement internal controls to avoid misappropriation of funds and other financial lapses.

“As a system of checks and balances, it protects the church from intentional and unintentional acts that could cause a loss of the church’s financial assets or result in the misreporting of the church’s financial information,” she wrote.

She also encouraged churches to conduct a risk assessment to determine whether staff and volunteers had sufficient training, oversight and understanding of the financial policies and procedures to avoid loss of funds.

In a 2019 article, Gordon-Floyd noted that in AME churches, the pastor is the head of all boards and “must regularly oversee the financial stewardship of the church.”

However, according to the denomination’s Doctrine and Discipline, a church’s board of stewards is “charged with making an exact account of all monies collected for the support of the ministry.”

While Gordon-Floyd supports making the pastor a signer on the bank account, she advised that each account have at least three signers. The pastor, she said, should not have authority to withdraw funds without board approval.

It is unknown what financial controls were in place at Vernon AME, but AME guidance recommends multiple signers and board approval for withdrawals from church accounts.

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