FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. — An employee at a Fernandina Beach church was arrested and is facing charges of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the congregation.
Melissa English, 44, worked 11 years as a financial secretary for Amelia Baptist Church located at 961167 Buccaneer Trail, according to a Thursday news release from the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office. During that time, she was responsible for maintaining the church’s financial records.
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English, also known as Melissa Rhoden, is accused of using the church’s money to pay for personal items, such as a helicopter flight, airline tickets, hotel stays, and $125,000 on cruise lines, the news release states.
English came under the radar recently of two new church committee members that noticed discrepancies in bank documents and records, finding that funds were lower than they should have been, the news release states.
“Upon examining credit card statements from a church credit card issued directly to English, they discovered hundreds of thousands of dollars had been used for her personal expenses,” the news release states.
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After discovering the discrepancies, English was terminated from her job. The church hired a contractor to review all financial transactions from 2019 to 2024 and the contractor found numerous discrepancies and fraudulent charges.
According to the sheriff’s office report personal charges English is accused of making are:
- $40,000 in 2019
- $90,000 in 2020
- $100,000 in 2021 when funds were used for Amazon purchases, SeaWorld tickets, Hey Dude Shoes, hotel stays, airlines, and a helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon.
- $125,000 in 2022 when purchases included cruise lines, Airbnb rentals, concert tickets, and more.
- $123,000 in 2023 when purchases included charges at Amazon, hotels, and Walmart.
- $90,000 in 2024 when purchases included cruise lines, baseball tickets, hotels, and other personal expenses, the news release states.
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English is charged with grand theft over $100,000, a first-degree felony, for knowingly and unlawfully using the church’s credit card for personal expenses totaling over $500,000, the sheriff’s office news release states.
A warrant was issued for English in March and following a post about her alleged crimes on the sheriff’s office Facebook page she was located in Baker County and detained.
Residents and workers in the area expressed disbelief that a crime of this scale could happen within a church.
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“Hard-working people are donating money to the church to help others in need,” Jean Black said.
Local worker Christopher James said English will also be accountable to God.
“She’s gonna have to lay in bed at night and go to sleep with that on her mind—like, ‘Hey, I just took this from the Lord. This is the Lord’s money. Why would I do this?‘” James said.
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Amelia Baptist Church released the following statement:
“In October of 2024, the leadership of Amelia Baptist Church discovered evidence of financial irregularities. The employee overseeing the financial operations of the church admitted to wrongdoing and her employment was terminated immediately. The Church leadership reported the theft to the NCSO and has cooperated fully with detectives investigating the crime. There is no evidence of wrongdoing by any other members, employees or pastors of the Church.
“While the last few months have been incredibly hurtful and difficult, it would be easy to become distracted from our main mission as a church. Amelia Baptist Church remains committed to the values that make us a church family. We continue to work diligently to proclaim the good news of the Gospel, to see lives transformed by the love of Jesus and care for people. While events such as this could cause us either to feel despair or have a sense of superiority, the Bible is clear that we all have a sinful nature and thus we must approach this with humility: because apart from Christ we are all capable of much worse (Matthew 15:19); and hopefully, by placing our faith in Jesus we can be transformed (Romans 10:13).
“Due to the ongoing nature of the legal matters we can not comment further and refer all other questions to our Attorney John Cascone or the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office.”
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