OAKLAND — A woman who worked for an Oakland church secretly sold off its parking lot, prosecutors say in new charges alleging the woman stole as much as $480,000 from the congregation’s coffers.
Hayward resident Eva Bowen Brown, 73, is accused committing fraud and grand theft by embezzlement during the years she served as financial secretary of the Seventh Avenue Baptist Church.
The alleged theft in this case dealt a financial blow to to the small brick-and-mortar place of worship nestled in Oakland’s diverse Eastlake area. The building’s doors were padlocked from the outside on Thursday, while a past-due water bill lay on the front step.
Down the street, a handful of vehicles sat in the church’s former parking lot, where a blue sign that reads “7th Avenue Church” still sits over a chain-link fence.
The Rev. Jeffrey Kirton, the church’s pastor, fired Brown in 2023 after discovering the church’s bank accounts were overdrawn and that its funds were being misspent, according to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office.
Reached this week, a woman who identified herself as Brown’s sister said there had been no wrongdoing at the Seventh Avenue Baptist Church, accusing its leaders of “running around town telling ugly stories.”
“She is going through hell and high water trying to clear her name from these untruths,” the woman, who declined to be named, said of Brown.
The problem is widespread, with roughly 10% of Protestant pastors saying a 2017 survey that their church funds were embezzled. A bishop pleaded guilty last year to fraudulently obtaining church properties for profit in several Bay Area cities, while a Catholic priest was convicted in 2017 for pilfering about $1.4 million from the Diocese of San Jose.
The 7th Avenue Baptist Church parking lot on Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Oakland, Calif. Eva Bowen Brown, a 76-year-old Hayward resident, who worked as the financial secretary for the church is accused of embezzling as much as $480,000 from its coffers. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
Prosecutors in this case allege Brown stole hundreds of thousands of dollars in church offerings between 2019 and 2023, frequently making excuses to the congregation’s leadership for why she could not deliver written financial reports.
Brown, the sole keyholder of the church’s mailbox, would also intercept incoming mail in order to cover her tracks, the DA’s office said.
Property records indicate Brown carried out a $27,500 sale of the church parking lot to Comprehensive Care LP — the former business name of a local nursing facility, Bay Area Healthcare Center, which is located a few blocks away on 10th Avenue.
Prosecutors allege Brown fraudulently represented herself as chief financial officer of the church in negotiating the July 2022 transaction with Shirley Ma, an executive of the nursing facility, which had been leasing the lot since 2016 to meet its own parking needs.
An accountant at the Bay Area Healthcare Center told the DA’s office there was no reason to suspect Brown lacked authority to sell the lot. Ma did not respond to questions about the sale.
The 7th Avenue Baptist Church on Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Oakland, Calif. Eva Bowen Brown, a 76-year-old Hayward resident, who worked as the financial secretary for the church is accused of embezzling as much as $480,000 from its coffers. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
David Bettencourt, an inspector at the DA’s office, appeared confident in the charging documents that the church leadership board’s members were “completely unaware of what (Brown) had been up to.”
Kirton, the documents state, only discovered the lot had been sold nearly a year earlier when he began investigating the church’s finances, ultimately concluding that about $480,000 in funds had been embezzled “for Brown’s benefit.”
Checks issued by the church were required to have signatures from both Brown and a treasurer, the latter of whom has not been charged.
Seventh Avenue Baptist Church sits among a large handful of congregations in the Eastlake area, which is known for its diverse blend of residents, including many immigrant families.
Despite operating for decades, however, the church seems to keep a low profile, with little online footprint and a listed telephone number that does not appear to be active.
Kirton, a Seventh Avenue member since 1981 who became a pastor in 2013, declined an interview request, saying he had been advised to “hold my peace.”
Shomik Mukherjee is a reporter covering Oakland. Call or text him at 510-905-5495 or email him at shomik@bayareanewsgroup.com.