Former Vernon AME pastor pleads guilty to embezzlement and tax evasion; owes more than $500,000

Rev. Keith Mayes, the former senior pastor of Vernon AME Church in the Historic Greenwood District, pleaded guilty to embezzlement this week.

Mayes, 63, pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud and another count of tax evasion. He has been ordered to repay $504,313.88 for his illegal activities, including nearly $206,000 in unpaid taxes to the IRS.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma said after Mayes was hired as the senior pastor in October 2021, he opened a bank account titled “administrative expenses.”

He accepted and deposited donations from church members and charitable organizations. After being contacted about a stock donation, Mayes opened a brokerage account and received $365,000 in stock transfers in 2021 and 2022. 

The attorney’s office said he then liquidated the funds, put them into the church’s account and embezzled most of the money for his personal use, including gambling and firearm purchases. 

Mayes’ sentencing hearing has yet to be scheduled. 

In a statement, his attorney told the Tulsa World that with his guilty plea, he “accepts full responsibility for his conduct and will pay a great price for his transgressions.”

“He offers no excuses except to say please do not let my personal weakness in any way shape or form distract from the great things that the most historic Black church in this great country has achieved and will continue to achieve,” the statement read, according to the World. 

Vernon is the last remaining Black-owned structure still standing in Greenwood after it was rebuilt in 1925, four years after the 1921 Race Massacre. Earlier this year, church officials — including Mayes — launched a multi-year project to preserve its basement and turn it into a museum and cultural center. 

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