An Upstate New York woman received five years of probation after stealing approximately $272,205 from the Church of God in Christ over nearly seven years, according to Erie County District Attorney Michael J. Keane.
LaChria Bowden, 55, of Buffalo, was sentenced to probation at the request of church officials, who asked that she receive no jail time and be ordered to pay the organization back, prosecutors said.
Bowden pleaded guilty in November 2025 to grand larceny in the second degree and repeated failure to file personal income and earnings taxes. While working as an assistant to the treasurer at the Church of God in Christ on Buffalo’s East Side between November 2017 and September 2024, she wrote checks to herself for various sums that were preauthorized for church expenses…