%1

With the fraud convictions of two executives of the bankrupt Baptist Foundation of Arizona, investors are expressing relief that a sad chapter in their lives has ended.

In verdicts announced July 24 after a ten-month trial jurors found William Crotts, the foundation’s former president, and Thomas Grabinski, its former general counsel, each guilty of three counts of fraud in what was the largest nonprofit bankruptcy in U.S. history when it occurred in 1999.

Over seven years, Leroy Brown, 60, a financial manager at the Salvation Army’s Newark, New Jersey, office, secretly stole money that was supposed to be used to subsidize rent for AIDS patients and the poor.

At a hearing July 26 in federal court, Brown admitted to cutting 585 checks worth more than $385,000, then passing them to a friend who cashed them and split the proceeds with him. Standing before U.S. District Judge Joseph Greenaway, Brown pleaded guilty to conspiring to embezzle and to tax evasion. He faces between 30 and 37 months in prison.

A top treasury official of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) was fired after she admitted to embezzlement, denomination executives have announced.

More than $100,000 in church funds have disappeared. Church officials in Louisville, Kentucky, said restitution and insurance should cover the losses. They also said the case will be handled by prosecutors, reported the Presbyterian News Service.