The 43-year-old pastor of the First Pentecostal Church of Jonesboro was sentenced Wednesday to 33 months in prison and 5 years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to bank fraud and not paying payroll taxes for the church’s employees.
Scott Keith Voss entered a guilty plea in November to fraud that began in September 2007 and ran until June 2010. The fraud totaled nearly $600,000.
At sentencing on Wednesday in Little Rock, U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller also ordered Voss to pay restitution of $450,000 to the First Bank of Owasso and $148,564.94 to the Internal Revenue Service.
"As part of the scheme, Voss applied for a loan from the First Bank of Owasso, pledging as collateral the Jonesboro Worship Center real estate," according to the U.S. Attorney Christopher Thyer’s office in Little Rock.
But Voss, who was also president of the church, failed to get the approval from the church’s board of directors.
The U.S. Attorney’s office also sadi Voss used the funds to retire previous unauthorized loans for his personal use and to obtain additional funds for expenditures not approved by the Worship Center’s board.
Voss failed to make payments to the IRS for the church’s employees’ payroll taxes between 2006 and 2010.
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