A woman has been sentenced to 20 years and ordered to repay $143,955.07 to the Dunwoody Baptist Church for stealing funds between 2006 and 2009.
On Friday, Sept. 21, Judge Tangela Barrie accepted Patricia Padgett’s guilty plea to four counts of Theft by Taking. Padgett will actually spend 3 years in prison and the remainder of her 20 year sentence on probation.
DeKalb County District Attorney Robert James says, “the defendant knowingly and willfully deceived her former employer and stole more than $140,000.00 over a three year period. We are encouraged by the outcome of this case and by the prospect that the parishioners of Dunwoody Baptist Church will recoup a portion of the funds stolen by Patricia Padgett.”
Padgett was the former Accounts Payable Manager for the church. She was responsible for collecting the income from the church’s various activities (including cash collected at Sunday services, the daycare facility, the fitness facility and mission trips). Padgett was also responsible for depositing the money in the church’s SunTrust account, but failed to.
