A retired pastor with the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Inc., Rev. Cedric V. Alexander, has filed a proposed class-action lawsuit alleging that the denomination lost almost 70% or nearly $100 million from its retirement plan through foolish and risky investments.
The complaint was filed on Tuesday in Maryland. It alleges that Jerome V. Harris, the former executive director of the denomination’s Department of Retirement Services, was “given sole authority to invest tens of millions of AMEC clergy’s and other Church servants’ retirement savings in a questionable and potentially unlawful purchase of undeveloped land in Florida, a promissory note to an Illinois installer of solar panels, and an investment in a now non-existent capital venture outfit.”
Church officials kept reporting to the plan’s beneficiaries that their retirement funds were safe as investments in annuities from Symetra Financial while all these took place.
The complaint reads: “This suit is about a complete and total abrogation of these fiduciary responsibilities by Defendants, resulting in numerous breaches of duty and resulting in a single, unmonitored individual, Defendant Harris, controlling all Plan assets and investments,”
Alexander retired in September 2020 and revealed that from January 1, 2021, through March 31, 2021, his retirement account showed a balance of $86,631.75. On September 13, 2021, he requested a transfer of his funds from the church’s plan to an individual retirement account and was informed in October 2021 by Rev. James Miller that his request could not be met due to a pending audit.
Rev. James Miller also sent a letter in November telling participants in the retirement plan that the audit was taking longer than expected. On December 14, 2021, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the denomination was investigating “possible financial irregularities” with its retirement fund investments.
During a meeting of the denomination’s general board on January 31, participants in the church’s retirement plan were told that “more than $90 million of the denomination’s $126.8 million retirement fund was missing, and no one connected with the Church, except its former Department of Retirement Services Executive Director, Harris, knew where the money went.”
The complaint stated: “Those attending the January 31st meeting were told that despite repeated representations to Plan participants over the last two decades, the Plan’s assets were not all invested in annuities provided by Symetra,”
“Instead, the Council of Bishops, General Board, Department of Retirement Services, the chair of the Department, Bishop Green and the Trustees allowed a single individual, Defendant Harris, to exercise full decision making authority over the use of all Plan assets.”
Rev. Miller who is Defendant Harris’s replacement as Executive Director of the Department of Retirement Services said: “never again will we allow one person to count the money,”