A federal court is accusing a Charlotte realtor of scamming his own friends and church out of at least $1.7 million.
Photo by Sora Shimazaki / Pexels / Creative Commons
WCNC Charlotte reported that Brian Shane Haigler of Mint Hill accepted a plea deal after being charged in late June with wire fraud.
Federal court filings reviewed by WCNC allege Haigler conducted multiple schemes between February 2019 and December 2021, including one involving a federal Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL).
As the sole signatory on the bank accounts of his church, whose identity was not revealed in the filings, Haigler obtained a $311,000 EIDL in the church’s name without the knowledge of church leaders, then kept the money. He received the loan from the Small Business Administration in April 2021, about a year after President Trump expanded the EIDL program as part of the CARES Act to assist small businesses and nonprofits financially harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Haigler allegedly confessed his scheme to the pastor in March 2022, leading to one federal charge of wire fraud. But according to court filings, that was not his only crime.
Prosecutors said Haigler embezzled the church out of an additional $389,000 between July 2019 and December 2021. Around that same period, he also scammed friends, acquaintances and fellow church members out of more than $1 million through a Ponzi-style scheme, claiming to invest their money in real estate purchases and property improvements. Unable to make good on the “flat 10% return” he promised, Haigler dipped into investors’ funds, as well as money embezzled from the church, to pay the earliest investors. Eventually, the payments dried up and investors began asking questions.
Neither the identities of the alleged victims nor the details of the plea agreement have yet been made public.
Haigler’s case bears similarities to an incident reported by MinistryWatch last September, in which a Washington pastor was convicted of fraudulently obtaining $3.5 million in Payroll Protection Program loans for his church, then using the money for personal expenses. As in this case, Rudolph Brooks Jr. was the sole signatory on the bank accounts for his church, Kingdom Tabernacle of Restoration Ministries.
ChurchLaw&Tax advises that no pastor should have sole access to a church’s finances and that the people signing checks should not be the same ones balancing the books.
“An individual with access to the accounting records could ‘cover their tracks’ if they were a check signer that made improper payments,” warned contributor Vonna Laue.
Similarly, writing for the North American Mission Board, Simplify Church Founder and CEO Josh Henry lists one of “10 common church financial mistakes” as “not having enough or any checks and balances.”
“Set up a Google Alert for the term ‘Church Embezzlement.’ You’ll see an email almost daily with another church falling victim to financial problems,” wrote Henry. “All these horror stories simply prove the need for effective checks and balances for your finances. The internal controls you put in place early will serve long into the life of your church.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Why does MinistryWatch report on financial fraud in the church? We report on them because one in three churches will be victimized, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. We also report on them because these crimes have real victims and cost taxpayers and other stakeholders billions of dollars every year. Even small crimes in small churches have huge consequences. We also report on them to remind our readers that they do not have to be victims. There are steps you can take to prevent financial waste, fraud, and abuse in your church or ministry. To find out more, click here.
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