Leaders of a Georgia-based church with congregations in five states were indicted Wednesday on federal charges accusing them of swindling millions of dollars in veterans education benefits and using congregation members as straw buyers to conceal property purchases, prosecutors said.
An indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Savannah charges Rony Denis, founder of House of Prayer Christian Churches of America, and seven other church leaders with conspiring to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, among other federal offenses. Authorities allege the leaders exploited soldiers and other service members by enrolling them in church-run seminary programs that drained their G.I. Bill benefits and by falsifying mortgage paperwork to hide the church’s purchase of rental homes.
"The defendants are accused of exploiting trust, faith, and even the service of our nation’s military members to enrich themselves," Paul Brown, agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta office, said in a news release.
Prosecutors say the church established affiliated Bible seminaries in Hinesville, Georgia; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Killeen, Texas; and Tacoma, Washington, and focused recruitment near military bases, including Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia. From 2013 through 2021, the indictment says the seminaries collectively brought in $23.5 million in G.I. Bill payments for tuition, fees, books and housing. The charges in the Georgia portion of the case stem from about $3.2 million in benefit payments tied to two seminaries that, prosecutors allege, operated under a state religious exemption that barred them from receiving federal funds.
The indictment alleges church officials lied on annual filings with Georgia regulators, stating the seminaries received no federal funding, and that they pressured service members to spend their Department of Veterans Affairs education benefits on the church programs. A veterans advocacy group, Veterans Education Success, told the VA in 2020 that former students had complained that the House of Prayer seminaries had drained their benefits while offering little education, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors also allege the church used parishioners as straw buyers to conceal leaders’ purchases of rental properties. The indictment says officials falsified loan applications and closing documents, forged powers of attorney and transferred homes that were then rented to congregation members. House of Prayer is accused of receiving roughly $5.2 million in rent payments between 2018 and 2020, and prosecutors say some of that money was used to pay for Denis’ two homes and certain leaders’ credit card bills.
Denis was also charged with helping to falsify federal income tax returns for 2018, 2019 and 2020. Prosecutors allege Denis assumed the name he used after stealing another person’s identity in 1983 and that he founded House of Prayer about two decades ago. The church, headquartered in Hinesville, at times had as many as a dozen churches across five states and a Hinesville congregation that grew to about 300 members, the indictment says.
FBI agents and local deputies arrested Denis Wednesday at his home in Martinez, Georgia, according to local media reports. The FBI executed search warrants at several House of Prayer churches in 2022, prosecutors said.
In a separate indictment unsealed Wednesday, federal prosecutors charged Bernadel Semexant, a pastor at the House of Prayer church in Hinesville, with sexual abuse of a girl between the ages of 12 and 15. The pastor’s attorney, William Joseph Turner, and an attorney listed for Denis, Steven Sadow, did not immediately respond to email messages seeking comment.
The cases are part of a broader federal inquiry into alleged misuse of veterans education benefits and mortgage fraud. The indictment does not establish guilt, and the defendants will have the opportunity to respond in court as the cases proceed through the federal judicial system.