Couple sent to prison for stealing thousands from church in North Carolina

FROM GASTONGAZETTE.COM -

Linda Roland’s voice quivered as she publicly apologized to the church, family and friends that she and her husband Alan Roland hurt when they embezzled money from a local church.




“I would just like to say sometimes good people, even Christians, make very bad choices and mistakes,” Linda Roland said, reading from an apology letter she had written. “There are consequences for those things, and we know that. We are sorry for what we did.”



Linda and Alan Roland both pleaded guilty to four counts of embezzlement Monday and will serve between 24 and 32 months in prison as part of a plea deal. Gaston County District Attorney Locke Bell dropped the charges from a single charge of embezzlement with a higher penalty to four lower-penalty embezzlement felonies because they admitted to the church and the police that they had taken the money.



Bell said the couple embezzled $208,000 from the Way of the Cross Baptist Church from 2007 through 2010.



“They were writing checks to themselves, and sometimes they’d put some money back, other times they didn’t,” Bell said in Superior Court Monday.



Alan and Linda Roland opted to have attorney Andrea Godwin represent both of them, waiving their rights to have their own individual lawyers.



Pride caused the couple to take money from the church when difficult economic times hit about a decade ago, Godwin said. The two met in church, married at 18 and lived godly lives, she said. Alan Roland left his job to start a landscaping business that did well at first, then struggled to make ends meet, Godwin said.



“I believe that was when at some point a line was crossed,” Godwin said. “They decided in their own minds to borrow money from the church and then pay it back.”



They borrowed and repaid the money once, blurring the lines of right and wrong and making it easier to do again, she said.



“Once that became an option for them, there was no way to catch up,” Godwin said.



Godwin said the Rolands took a little more than $100,000, less than what the prosecution alleged. Godwin said they would write a check, cash it and put some of the money back in the church’s account as a way to balance the church’s accounting books.



When a $25,000 church bill needed to be paid, Alan Roland went to different lenders to get money. He was unsuccessful, Godwin said.



“They wrote a letter to the church before they were ever charged,” Godwin said. “They indicated to me that not only did they feel a great sense of desperation, but also a sense of relief. They were exhausted and they were disgusted with their situation. Both had considered taking their own lives. The friends that they have are friends from church.”



The Rolands’ sentences did not require them to pay restitution to the Mount Holly church with around 80 members. Way of the Cross deacon David Gibson said the church was OK with not getting its money back.



“It’s a tragedy to the church, a tragedy to the family,” Gibson said. “We love them, and they love us, and we left it into God’s hands to handle it.”



Linda Roland dabbed away tears and struggled to stay calm as she read an apology from both of them. The couple has lost their home, their vehicles and their jobs, she said.



“But none of that matters because we deserve it. We believe that the guilt and the remorse and the self hate that we have for ourselves has contributed to the health problems that we have,” Linda Roland said. “We have no one to blame but ourselves.”



The couple will never be in charge of money at a church again, Linda Roland said.



“We don’t even know if any church would even allow us to attend,” she said. “We only ask that anyone who knows how to pray, to pray for this little church and pray for us.”



Alan Roland stood and gave an apology of his own to the preacher, deacons, church board, all members of the church and his son.



“My wife and I were both raised in a Christian home. I raised him (my son) in a Christian home, and I let him down,” Alan Roland said. “I tried so hard before this came out to fix it.”



Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Poovey acknowledged the sincerity of their apologies.



“I can tell that your remorse is genuine,” he said. “It is simply a tragedy all the way around.”



The Rolands will start serving their time on Aug. 30.



“My wife and I will not be able to see each other for 32 months,” Alan Roland said. “She’ll go her way, and I’ll go mine. We’ve been married 38 years and we’ve never been apart.”