Former employee sentenced in stealing from NorCal church

YUBA CITY, Calif. - A woman was sentenced to prison for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from a church in Yuba City over the course of five years.

Chanell Easton, from Oklahoma City, was sentenced on Aug. 20 to five years in prison for embezzling over $360,000 from a church she worked at as an administrator, from 2013-2018. 

Authorities said the 38-year-old used the church's credit cards to purchase at a hair salon, retail stores, online retailers, a vacation rental service, and VIP concert tickets. The credit cards were then paid off using the church's money, including money from its food pantry and youth ministry. 

Authorities did not identify the church victimized in the scheme.

One of the credit cards used in Easton's "embezzlement scheme" belonged to the church's youth minister, and Easton used his identity to make thousands of dollars worth of purchases on Zappos.com. 

"Easton’s use of the youth minister’s identity allowed her to obscure her embezzlement and to shift suspicion away from herself, thereby allowing her fraudulent scheme to continue," federal authorities said.

Easton also transferred money from the church's bank account to her own personal account to pay the balance of her own credit card, pay her cellphone provider, and write checks to herself by forging the signatures of the church's treasurer or the head volunteer of the church's food pantry. 

As far as restitution goes, it will be determined in a separate hearing in November.