Accused pastor gets another postponement

BY JOHN L. GUERRA

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

John W. McKenzie, the pastor accused of stealing $54,000 from St. James First Missionary Baptist Church in Bahama Village, has won yet another postponement.

He was to stand trial July 28 but Circuit Court Judge Mark Jones approved McKenzie’s request for a new trial date. The pretrial hearing is now set for 10 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 9. The trial is scheduled for 8:45 a.m., Monday, Sept. 15.

According to Clerk of the Court records, McKenzie was to have stood trialMarch 10,May 12 and June 7, but the court postponed the dates for various reasons, including giving McKenzie’s new lawyer time to prepare. In December, McKenzie fired his first attorney,　MerrellSands, and replaced him with Alan Fowler. Clerk of the Court records show Fowler is still McKenzie’s lawyer.

McKenzie hadfive pretrial hearings in 2013 alone; in 2014 he has had three more. Judges often agree to requests for postponement; it helps squash future appeals based on defendant claims that they were not given every chance at receiving a fair trial.

The pastor, once head of one of Key West’s most historic but financially modest churches, was arrested June 17, 2013. His alleged theft came to light when the church found it didn’t have enough money to complete renovations to its building.

Investigators allege McKenzie either received or gave himself pay advances, as much as $10,000 in a single month, discovery documents show. By the time a church trustee complained to prosecutors in June 2013 that McKenzie was “emptying the bank account,” investigators wrote, the pastor and church secretary Jacqueline Williams had written checks totaling $121,857, which exceeded the pastor’s pay by $54,657, investigators allege. McKenzie earned a salary of roughly $700 a week.

 

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