A former pastor of a Westminster church was sentenced today to 14 years in federal prison for an investment scam federal prosecutors say took in $33 million.
Kent R. E. Whitney, 39, pleaded guilty in November to mail fraud and failing a false federal income tax return. U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Staton also ordered him to pay $22,662,668 in restitution.
From September 2014 through April 2019 Whitney used his Church of the Healthy Self to solicit investments with promises of a guaranteed an annual rate of return of 12%, a guaranteed return of principal with no risk because it was federally insured, that the worst return over the previous five years was a 1.5% profit in January 2015, the church’s traders had not lost money in 15 years and that the church was audited by an accounting firm, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said little of the investments went into any trading accounts. Whitney sent bogus reports to investors, prosecutors said. He admitted in his plea agreement to falsely reporting his total income in 2018 as $17,539 when it was actually at least $452,872, prosecutors said. About $435,333 of Whitney’s income was obtained through the scam, prosecutors said.
