An accountant has been arrested and charged with stealing more than $440,000 from St. Christopher’s By-the-Sea Episcopal Church over a 10-month period.
Francisco Enrique Gomez, 29, was arrested on Thursday and charged with 1st-degree grand theft and organizing a scheme to defraud, both felonies, according to court records. On Friday morning, he made his first appearance before 11th Circuit Judge David Young, who set bonds totaling $20,000.
An arraignment in the case is scheduled for 9 a.m. on March 16.
Miami-Dade County online jail records showed Gomez was no longer in custody on Friday night.
The missing money was reported to the Key Biscayne Police Department on Aug. 4 by Rev. Willie Allen-Faiella. At the time, police and church officials offered few details while the theft was investigated.
St. Christopher-by-the-sea Episcopal Church on Key Biscayne seen in an aerial photograph on May 29, 2025. (KBI Photo/Theo Miller).
Between around September 2024 and June 26, 2025, detectives said they found Gomez had made numerous transactions with the church’s bank account totaling more than $440,000, financial statements revealed according to the criminal complaint. Some of the transactions were Zelle transfers made to Gomez’s personal bank account.
After his arrest Thursday, Gomez willingly spoke to Village detectives, admitting to and detailing how he stole the money from the church. Those details were consistent with evidence in the case, police noted.
“The pattern of repeated unauthorized transfers over an extended period demonstrates a systematic course of conduct designed to misappropriate church funds for personal use,” the detective wrote in the complaint.
The loss did not affect the church’s Montessori School account and was not affecting church operations, officials told the Independent at the time of the investigation.
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The Village continues to see an increase in fraud or scam cases and it has created a difficult workload for Village police. In response, they have begun hosting prevention seminars, especially aimed at seniors.
The next two sessions are set for Jan. 27 at the Community Center, one from noon to 1:30 p.m. and the other from 6 to 8 p.m.
“This is happening everywhere — this is pervasive throughout the country. You can make a correlation to drop in violent crime. People realize they can do I.D. theft and fraud (instead),” Police Chief Frank Sousa recently said.
Jessica De Leon is a general assignment reporter at the Key Biscayne Independent.