Analysis by Chuck Fager

Priscilla Deters, a 63-year old California woman, was convicted on March 6, 1998 of defrauding churches of over $4 million dollars, including over $200,000 from Kansas Quakers and Nazarenes. I spent three months investigating the Deters case.

As a churchgoer myself, a lot about this case was hard to take. It was depressing to discover how easily many church leaders, and members, greedily succumbed to her quick-money scheme when it was presented in "Christian" garb.

Crime experts told me this was nothing special. Church scams are just one kind of what they call "affinity group frauds," crimes based on some bond of trust between perpetrator and victim. Professional, ethnic, even family groups are other favorite targets.

A more surprising--and depressing--lesson was how widespread these crimes are, yet how weak the typical law enforcement response is.

The Deters trial was a stunning exception, but one which proves the rule. These cases are notoriously hard to investigate--complicated, far-flung, expensive. Deters had victims in 21 states. Moreover, she intimidated many into silence, threatening that those who talked to investigators would never see their money again.

Other victims were too ashamed to talk. Dick Johnston, head of the National Center on White Collar Crime, told me, "The situation with white collar crime today is not unlike the underreporting of rape a few years ago, when we couldn't get many victims to come forward." Deters was prosecuted largely because a heroic Quaker whistleblower, Leatha Hein of Valley Center, refused to be silenced, and prodded authorities into action.

Another obstacle is that these cases are not "sexy," media-wise. White collar criminals usually look like their victims--and who gets elected in America being tough on grandmothers? Give us "street crime" any day. If Priscilla Deters had used a gun to stick up all these churches, it would have been headline news for weeks.

She didn't, but she might as well have--the $4 million is just as gone. People's life savings have been plundered, their old age impoverished, their faith communities shattered. These crimes deserve more public attention.

Given their low priority, though, I shouldn't have been amazed to find that most white collar crime enforcement is tepid. But I was. Shocked, in fact.

How bad is it? A North Dakota Nazarene Superintendent was quoted in a daily paper there openly ridiculing that state's 1991 cease and desist order against Deters. Then he simply ignored it, and sent her $600,000 of his churches' money, almost all of which was lost.

The response? Zip.

Again: South Dakota issued a similar order against Deters in 1995. When I called to ask about it, the staff vaguely remembered it, but nobody could even find a copy to send me.

This is law and order? Crooks are supposed to fear these guys?

Effective white collar crime enforcement involves cooperation. The Wichita trial is a fine example. Kansas Investigator Gary Fulton teamed up with California agencies to get a search warrant for Deters' house there. Then the feds stepped in, and Fulton shared his evidence with them.

It was hard work, which paid off. But such cooperation is still the exception. What's the bottom line for you and me, the folks in the benches? I think there are two:

First, if you are victimized this way, don't take the loss in silent shame: Speak up. Get mad. Raise hell.

Make the so-called "tough on crime" politicians and prosecutors take notice.

And second, prevention is still our best protection. Which for Christians means remembering the following motto, especially where money is concerned: Trust in Jesus, and check out everybody else.

Your responses to this commentary are welcome. Excerpts from responses may be posted here for others to consider.

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Copyright © 1998 by Chuck Fager. All rights reserved.