A Missouri minister known to his congregation as Apostle K.C. Sparks goes on trial today in St. Louis, accused of orchestrating a $1.2 million pandemic loan fraud scheme that prosecutors say siphoned money from his own parishioners to fund a $133,000 Mercedes, a second Mercedes worth $108,000, and designer shoes. Kenneth C. Sparks III faces 33 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering tied to his role as a visiting minister at Faith Walk Ministry in Paris, Missouri.
According to St. Louis Magazine, Sparks obtained parishioners’ personal financial information by telling them he needed it to fix their credit scores or secure funding for the church, then allegedly used those identities to file fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program applications. The Paycheck Protection Program was established in April 2020 to help small businesses survive the COVID-19 pandemic, and prosecutors say Sparks exploited it by claiming he earned $98,700 annually from a nonexistent consulting business when he applied in April 2021. He also received roughly $20,500 from a bogus PPP loan that same month and $147,900 from the Small Business Administration in July 2020, the outlet reports.
The scheme allegedly extended beyond PPP loans. According to the government, the Faith Walk Ministry fraud also involved $460,000 in bogus automobile loans, and Sparks used parishioners’ PPP money in accounts of companies he controlled, per St. Louis Magazine’s reporting.
Parishioners Say They Were Threatened With Curses
When members of the congregation began questioning why roughly $1 million in pandemic loan proceeds had landed in their personal Navy Federal Credit Union accounts, Sparks allegedly scolded them for questioning a “man of God” and threatened them with “curses from God,” according to court filings reported by the Credit Union Times. When Navy Federal froze several of those accounts over suspected fraud, Sparks and a co-defendant allegedly handed church members a written script of fabricated statements to read to credit union employees in order to get the funds unfrozen, the same court documents show…