A former pastor who embezzled more than €125,000 from his own church in Co Kildare,. Ireland has had his six-and-a-half-year prison sentence reduced by one year on appeal.
The Court of Appeal heard that 60 years old Ebenezer Oduntan , a former pastor of the City of David Church in County Kildare, has made no restitution either to the congregation he defrauded or Revenue.
Oduntan was convicted of 87 theft and fraud-related offences following a three-week trial at Naas Circuit Criminal Court in March, 2024.
The church, which has charitable status, is a branch of a Nigerian based Pentecostal church.
Oduntan was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, with the final six months suspended, by Judge Martina Baxter.
Quashing the original sentence and substituting it with the reduced term of six years with six months suspended at the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice Alexander Owens said the court was of the view that the headline sentence identified by the trial judge was “somewhat too high”, though he described this conclusion as “a rather marginal one”.