Former church pastor stole over $30,000 from congregation

A Cape Coral man turned himself in to authorities following an investigation that found he swindled a church out of thousands of dollars.

Jeffrey Countryman, 44, turned himself into the Cape Coral Police Department and has been charged in a scheme to defraud the Cape Christian Fellowship Church of over $30,000 where he previously was the lead pastor until December 2017.

In February, the church treasurer alerted the lead pastor, Cory Demmel, that his predecessor may have stolen money. The church bookkeeper noticed an irregularity in a $2,600 book order from Amazon that was never delivered.

“This is more than just grabbing money out of an offering plate,” Demmel said. “It was to the point where he passed two financial audits independent of us.”

After consulting with Amazon, the bookkeeper determined the invoice was fraudulent, which motivated him to dig deeper into Countryman’s expenditures. It lead to numerous altered receipts and invoices.

With this evidence, church staff reported the incident to the CCPD. Soon after, a financial crimes detective began an in-depth investigation. Several months later, there was ample evidence to support the church’s claim.

“While I said it was disappointing,” Demmel said, “we’ve also made the decision moving forward that we’re going to forgive Jeff. And forgiveness doesn’t condone what someone does.”