A former finance administrator who was hired to manage the books at Greater Salem City of God said the church’s finances were “a mess” when he arrived in 2004.

Nelson Adesegha said he tried to bring expenses in line with income – he cancelled church-issued credit cards for pastors Anthony and Harriet Jinwright – but ended up getting fired.

“There were a lot of credit cards,” Adesegha testified Tuesday in the Jinwrights’ federal trial on charges of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy. “All of them were maxed out. I cancelled all of them.”

Adesegha, a Nigerian-born business owner who holds a masters degree in finance and worked 16 years in banking, said his relationship with the Jinwrights, especially Harriet Jinwright, was marked with confrontation.

“I never figured out what her role was at the church,” he said of Greater Salem’s co-pastor. “She only gave orders.”
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In the photos above, Pastor Harriet Jinwright, far left, enters the federal courthouse Wednesday with an unidentified supporter. In the photo on the right, Bishop Anthony Jinwright, in dark glasses, enters the courthouse with his lawyers. 04/21/2010. (Photo: Qcitymetro.com)
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Adesegha said he told the Jinwrights that they should include money from Anthony Jinwright’s housing allowance and vacation pay in their taxable income. He said he also told the senior pastor that his salary was too high for a church the size of Greater Salem.

Even as Greater Salem was running a $1 million deficit, he said, salaries at the church totaled about 70-76 percent of its revenue.

Asked by one of the government prosecutors how much Anthony Jinwright was making, Adesegha said: “Based on my analysis, it was close to $1 million.”

The government alleges that the Jinwrights failed to report about $1.8 million in taxable income between 2001 and 2007. During that time, the indictment alleges, the couple received more than $5.3 million in payments and reimbursements from Greater Salem, not including gifts and cash given to them by church members.

Prosecutors have not alleged that the Jinwrights defrauded Greater Salem. They have alleged, however, that the couple’s actions at Greater Salem were part of a broader conspiracy to evade taxes on church-related income.

Judge Frank Whitney has allowed testimony concerning church operations so that the government may establish its allegations of conspiracy.

Adesegha said that when he first arrived at Greater Salem, he thought the congregation was looking to perhaps build a new building. But then the calls began.

“Calls from creditors; it was nonstop,” he said. “The first three months, that’s all I was doing.”

Adesegha said that when Greater Salem’s air conditioner went out in 2005, the congregation had to take out a loan to get it repaired. And when the church fell behind on those payments, he said, deputies from the Mecklenburg sheriff’s department arrived one day to repossess the unit. (A witness testified Monday that deputies came on a separate occasion to repossess the church’s vans.)

Adesegha said the repossession was halted only because Anthony Jinwright paid the $11,000 debt from his personal assets, making clear to church lay leaders that he expected to be repaid. (He also paid to halt the van repossession, with the same stipulation, the earlier witness testified.)

Unlike some witnesses who testified that they worked in the church finance office, Adesegha was never a member of Greater Salem. He said he worked at the church for more than a year.

Two weeks after he began working at the church, he said, he made a presentation to the congregation’s governing body, its board of directors, outlining some of his concerns. Immediately afterward, he said, Anthony Jinwright notified him that future presentations to the board should be cleared through him, the senior pastor.

Adesegha said directors later used his report to create a PowerPoint presentation, which was shown to the congregation.

“They showed the church was doing well,” he testified.

“Was it doing well?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Randall asked.

Adesegha: “Not from what I could see.”

Adesegha said the PowerPoint showed that the church had substantial reserves, which was “contrary to what I presented to the board.”

As the church ran short on cash, Adesegha said, he cut off the Jinwrights' church-issued credit cards, their church-issued cellphones and their church-issued pagers, which, he said, were used for the couple’s privately owned funeral home business. The credit cards, he said, were maxed out anyway.

“No one would give me a straight answer about who was using them,” he added.

He said Anthony Jinwright found out his gas card had been cancelled when he went to a BP station one day and had it rejected.

Adesegha said Anthony Jinwright once asked him to write a church check to cover his taxes. He said he refused, saying the church did not have the money and that Jinwright would need to present documentation. He said Jinwright never produced that documentation.

He said he also was concerned that church employees and resources were being used to support Anthony Jinwright’s for-profit ministry – A.L. Jinwright Ministries Inc.

Adesegha said he questioned other expense requests as well:

--A request from directors to issue a vacation check for the Jinwrights. “At the time I was there, we didn’t have any money for a vacation, so I wouldn’t have issued a check.”

--Continued payment of a car allowance, even after the church leased a Mercedes-Benz S500 for Anthony Jinwright to celebrate one of his pastoral anniversaries. “I thought that was strange,” Adesegha said.

Adesegha said he went to directors at one point to suggest that church salaries were too high. He said Anthony Jinwright told the board that a salary cut would negatively impact his lifestyle.

“After Mr. Jinwright objected to it,” Adesegha testified, “the board kept silent on that note.”

He said that when the Jinwrights refused to include some church-paid expenses in their taxable income, he went to the church’s payroll company and had them included anyway.

Adesegha said a conversation with Harriet Jinwright turned “heated” when he questioned why her mother, who was earning $15,000 to $17,000 at the church, was not getting a Form 1099 as required by law.

He said Harriet Jinwright said her mother was not supposed to get a 1099.

“That kind of took me aback because she said it very authoritatively,” he said.

Adesegha said he was fired in 2005. His termination letter, he said, was delivered by two directors acting under the instructions of Anthony Jinwright.

“No specific reason was given to me,” he recalled.

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