Pastor Faces Charges for Stealing, Money Laundering, and Soliciting Prostitution While He Was Food Bank Director
Charges come after a year-long investigation into the food bank’s spending.
Last week, a grand jury indicted a Tennessee pastor for stealing over $250,000, money laundering, and patronizing prostitution while leading a local food bank.
James Gill / Courtesy of Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
On June 9, Sumner County police arrested James Gill, 81, following a year-long investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI).
In 2009 Gill launched the Sumner County Food Bank as an arm of Liberty Baptist Church in Gallatin, where he was lead pastor. In April 2022, he closed the nonprofit, citing “health issues” and no successor to take over.
He resigned as pastor of Liberty the following month.
That same month (May 2022), TBI began investigating alleged theft at the food bank after Liberty’s deacons voted to alert authorities after discovering exorbitant checks written from the food bank to unexplained recipients.
Jerry Willoughby, who took over as Liberty’s senior pastor following Gill’s departure, stressed the embezzlement and allegations were solely related to Gill’s oversight of the Sumner County Food Bank and not the church. In a public statement, Willoughby said Gill led the food bank as a separate entity with its own board and financial secretary.
Willoughby told MinistryWatch he was on staff when Gill requested the church financial secretary write him a check for $55K. The secretary informed the chairman of the deacon body, who questioned Gill about the nature of the request.
Then, Willoughby said, Gill told the secretary and the deacon body he was resigning because they were questioning his integrity. The following day, the deacons called an emergency meeting where they voted to accept Gill’s resignation after determining he was not morally fit to pastor Liberty Baptist.
Willoughby told MW the church and food bank had separate bank accounts, but the church could view the nonprofit’s spending statements. The deacons found copies of suspicious food bank checks: one for $80K to an unknown man and two $25K checks to two women.
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They then voted unanimously to report their findings to law enforcement, he said.
The TBI statement says Gill used more than a quarter of a million dollars of the food bank’s money to make personal purchases, write checks to himself and others, and transfer funds to other accounts using the name of a different nonprofit organization.
The statement also added that investigators discovered Gill paid a food bank volunteer for sexual acts.
Following Sumner County Food Bank’s closing, First Baptist Church of Hendersonville—a church in a neighboring town—took over food bank operations for the county under a new and separate charity created to feed those who once depended on Gill’s organization.
Gill remains in the Sumner County Jail on a $75,000 bond.
