CONCORD, Cabarrus County (WCTI) — A Concord pastor has been convicted of stealing more than $100,000 from a widow in the months after her husband’s death.
District Attorney Scott Thomas says a Pamlico County jury convicted Thomas Steele, 63, embezzlement of more than $ 100,000, and four counts of exploitation of an elder adult.
Thomas says a joint investigation by the Pamlico County Sheriff’s Office and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation’s Financial Crime Investigation Unit revealed that Steele, a pastor at New Life Baptist Church in Concord, took more than $120,000 from a widow and family friend who lived in Grantsboro.
Extensive bank records showed that in 2015, the money was embezzled from the victim in the thirteen months following her husband’s death.
