A pastor from North Carolina has been arrested and charged with embezzlement for misusing funds donated for hurricane relief. This adds to a criminal record of financial crimes going back nearly 20 years. The McDowell County Sheriff’s Office stated that 60-year-old Jeffrey Brian Merrow was arrested and charged with felony embezzlement and felony larceny.
The man previously served as pastor of Garden Creek Baptist Church. The arrest came after a months-long investigation into the misuse of funds given by members of his congregation to help with hurricane relief. Hurricane Helene damaged more than $59.6 billion of property and led to the deaths of more than 100 people in North Carolina.
Officers from the McDowell County Sheriff’s Office first became aware of Merrow’s alleged crimes when congregants first reported concerns about “embezzlement, fraud, and theft” at the church in October of last year. This was shortly after Hurricane Helene ravaged Western parts of the state. Suspicious members of the church presented law enforcement with “numerous receipts” for “goods that were never purchased or services that were never rendered, all paid for using church funds.”
The sheriff’s office added, “Church members also reported that large amounts of cash donations for hurricane relief, collected from attendees and the community, were handed to Merrow but never turned in for their intended use.” They stated that “Additionally, community-donated items for hurricane relief such as generators, chainsaws, heaters, and more–were reported stolen.”
The allegations of embezzlement are not the only charges of financial misdeeds directed at Merrow. The disgraced pastor is also on “supervised probation for Obtaining Property by False Pretense greater than $100,000” stemming from an unrelated incident. Merrow has a criminal history dating back to 2006. according to the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections. He has also been convicted for failing to furnish buyers with a completed receipt or copy of any contract pertaining to an unspecified sale that took place in Iredell County.
He was also incarcerated for cheating people out of money from October 2007 to February 2008. Most recently, he was sentenced to 60 months of supervised probation for larceny committed in Camden County in 2021. One of the only digital records that Merrow has left behind is a bizarre tube Channel. It features videos of his sermons at Garden Creek Baptist Church.
The social media account contains a link to a blog titled Answers4u2.com. Merrow described the page as s offering “answers to questions about Jesus, God, or the Bible” as well as “a forum to discuss and meet others.” The blog is no longer active but contains shows several posts written by Merrow. Articles included “God’s Methods for Human Growth,” the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, “What God Would Watch on TV,” entries about the Ten Commandments, the Bible, and “How to Pray.”
Watch A Video of The Disgraced Pastor:
We reported on how another pastor, reacted better to the hurricane. In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s utter devastation, Rev. Franklin Graham has led extensive efforts to restore the impacted communities, particularly in the Asheville, North Carolina area where his father, Bill Graham, was born. Graham illustrated the extent of the damage to the area, emphasizing that it was far worse than what is portrayed on TV.
“I think it’s much worse than what people see on television,” he said. “The smells and so forth, you don’t get that through a television set; the filth that people are having to live in and work in and try to survive in.”Graham has deployed his faith-based charity, Samaritan’s Purse, to extend aid and contribute to clean up efforts. “We work all over the world, and then all of a sudden, now you’re working in your own backyard,” he said. “But I think the biggest story about this is neighbors helping neighbors. That’s the American spirit, and it’s always been that way in a crisis.”
