Online church secretary pays $372,000 in court as bishop insists over $1M still unpaid

Former online-church secretary Alecia Livermore arrived at the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court last Thursday with cash in hand, saying she had cleared what she owed after a dispute over unpaid wages. The bishop who brought the complaint says that is not so, and that more than $1 million has yet to be recovered.

Livermore faces a charge of fraudulent conversion. At the sitting she produced $372,000, which she described as the last instalment still due to the complainant. Her lawyer, Vanessa Taylor, told the court the sum at issue had now been repaid in full. Through the clerk of the court, the bishop rejected that position and maintained that more than $1 million is still outstanding.

The court was also told that Livermore had already returned $500,000 on one date and $1.7 million on another before the case came before a judge. Because the parties’ figures do not match, Taylor and the clerk of court agreed to go through the payment documents to establish whether the money has been fully reconciled.

Prosecutors allege the quarrel grew out of a falling-out over remuneration. The bishop is said to have placed $2.5 million with Livermore, directing her to hold it in her own bank account and to send transfers to several people for him. Although she worked as the church’s full-time secretary, she is alleged to have gone unpaid. She later quit, and a verbal clash followed between the two.

Livermore has said she cut back contact with the bishop after he allegedly issued threats against her. Even so, according to what was put before the court, she kept carrying out transfers on his orders until contact between them ended altogether. The bishop then went to the police, which led to her arrest and the present charge.

Bail was continued and the matter was put off until November 5.