JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A former Jacksonville pastor pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and aiding and abetting wire fraud, according to a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court.<\/p>\n
Marcus Eichelberger admitted he helped submit false Small Business Administration forms to get Paycheck Protection Program loans and loan forgiveness for a fictitious catering business called \u201cTalia McIntyre,\u201d the agreement says.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Eichelberger prepared the applications and fake Schedule C tax documents, emailed them to a congregant and \u201cwalk[ed] her through the prompts to completion,\u201d the filing says. He also used information from another congregant to obtain a fraudulent Economic Injury Disaster Loan, the plea says. The documents were transmitted electronically to a lender with servers outside Florida.<\/p>\n
The filings say the forgiveness applications sought $20,833 for a loan and $29,166 for another. Eichelberger is accused of receiving about $19,000 from the scheme and agreed to forfeit that amount.<\/p>\n
The plea sets mandatory restitution at $49,999 and additional restitution tied to related conduct at $259,800, for a total restitution obligation of $309,799, to be paid jointly and severally with others named in the case.<\/p>\n
Each count carries a maximum of 20 years in prison; together the counts carry a potential combined sentence of up to 40 years and fines that could reach $500,000 or more. <\/p>\n
The plea agreement says the remaining counts in the indictment will be dismissed at sentencing and that the U.S. attorney\u2019s office may recommend a reduction for acceptance of responsibility if Eichelberger meets the conditions laid out in the deal.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A former Jacksonville pastor pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and aiding and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1387,116,118,117],"class_list":["post-376935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-fraud","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}