Deacon, Former NASA Employee Gets 16-Month Jail Sentence For Stealing $300K From Church
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A former NASA employee who investigated fraud and abuse at the agency was sentenced Thursday to 16 months behind bars for failing to report almost $300,000 on his federal tax returns from cash he stole from his church, where he was a deacon.
Alvin Danielle Allen, 42, of Lancaster "lived a law-abiding life ... before the theft of these church funds," U.S. District Judge George H. King said before imposing sentence.
Allen, a former deacon and board member at Lancaster Baptist Church, admitted in his guilty plea that he pocketed cash offerings collected during religious services, officials said.
The amount of money Allen stole varied over the years until about October 2009, when he was caught on a hidden surveillance camera stealing church donations and putting the cash into his clothes, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
At that point, officials calculated Allen had stolen about $300,000 from the church from 2004 through 2008. The tax loss to the government -- based on Allen's failure to report his true income during the time of the thefts -- is almost 90,000, the IRS said.
Allen apologized "for my actions and my sin."
As family members looked on, he told the judge, "I wasn't doing the right thing and I needed to be corrected."
Allen was previously convicted in state court of grand theft by embezzlement and commercial burglary for stealing, federal officials said.
King pointed out that had Allen declared the stolen money on his tax returns, "there would be no (federal) problem."
"Whether he stole it or earned it, he's supposed to declare it," the judge said. "If you are not accurate in your tax return, there will be a penalty to pay -- not only the money but with prison time."
Along with the federal prison sentence -- to run concurrently with Allen's remaining state time -- King ordered him to pay restitution to the IRS and serve one year under supervised release following his release.
"Alvin Allen's actions were detestable," Leslie P. DeMarco, special agent in charge of the IRS-Criminal Investigation Los Angeles field office, previously said.
"Crimes committed by civil servants, whether as part of their official duties or private lives, violate public trust," the IRS agent said.
King said mitigating factors in deciding Allen's sentence included his military service, job history with NASA and service to the community.
(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)
