A crooked pastor who snatched more than $250,000 from his flock by abusing his “ascent” as a man of God has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison, ending a decade-long legal saga. Mwinda Lezoka will now have to repay his victims to avoid remaining in prison.
Posted at 1:40 p.m.
“The objective and subjective gravity of the offense is considerable. There are many aggravating circumstances. Mitigating circumstances are limited. He is solely responsible for the fraud, ”concluded Judge Yves Paradis Wednesday afternoon at the Montreal courthouse.
After having drawn out the legal process for more than 10 years, the 58-year-old man therefore finally finds himself behind bars. Since 2011, Mwinda Lezoka has multiplied postponements, requests and lawyer changes to avoid this fateful day. He also invoked the Jordan judgment twice to call for a halt to the judicial process.
In 2020, Judge Yves Paradis convicted Mwinda Lezoka of having defrauded certain followers of his church between 2005 and 2009. The magistrate determined that the pastor had taken advantage of his “undeniable ascendancy” over his flock to extract $268,000 from them. .
At that time, he led the Christian Community of Bethel, an evangelical church in the Ahuntsic district of Montreal. He was not only the “directing soul” from a spiritual point of view, but also on the “material” elements of their community life, summarizes the judge.
By obtaining these sums, Mwinda Lezoka made sure to “maintain his power and his enviable status” within the Church, as well as “his influence and his prestige” within the community”, concluded the judge.
The pastor had plunged his Church into a financial abyss by investing in ambitious real estate projects. He had pushed two congregants – sisters – to mortgage their house to lend $127,000 to the Church. He had also extorted $50,000 from a faithful thanks to pretexts.
Church deacon Fortunato Orsini ended up squarely on the streets after losing his home and $80,000. At the time, he was sleeping on a chair in church and struggling to feed himself. Since then, despite his illness, he has had to work on an assembly line to repay his debts. “I have no choice to survive,” he testified last fall.
“The influence he exercised over his victims was a significant factor in obtaining the various sums. This is a breach of trust, an aggravating circumstance, “Judge Paradis determined on Wednesday.
This is why the magistrate sentenced the accused to a relatively severe sentence. This is found in the “higher end of the range” of penalties for this type of fraud. The Crown was asking for three to four years’ imprisonment, against nine months’ detention for the defence.
In addition to his custodial sentence, the ousted pastor will have to hand over $268,000 to his victims by 2029 as part of a restitution order. Additionally, the judge sentenced Mwinda Lezoka to an alternative fine of $50,000. Failure to pay this fine will result in the ex-pastor being sentenced to an additional year in prison.
Note that Mwinda Lezoka appealed the judgment on his guilt.
Mand Jérôme Gagné represents the public ministry, while Mr.and Cynthia Lacombe defends Mr. Lezoka.