JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A local pastor with a dark past as a sex offender is accused of not practicing what he preaches by taking money from families.
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“He needed a deposit for everything,” said Debra Ficklen, who wanted to throw a surprise birthday party for her co-worker on the Westside, but what she didn’t realize was that she was throwing money away.
“[He wanted] money for the DJ, the venue, and everything,” Ficklen told Action News Jax Ben Becker.
She hired a man named Travis Frazier off social media for $1,200. In addition to being a caterer, he’s a pastor. After exchanging dozens of text messages, Ficklen said she was “holy ghosted,” but she’s not the only person who says they are a victim.
“We would like to trust everybody at their word especially a man of God,” says Pastor Ron Wise who along with his wife Shana, leads Wise Choice Ministries in Spring Park.
In 2011, Wise was in a car crash and suffered a spinal cord injury. He struggled to walk again, but he never lost faith in himself or others. Last year, the church needed a facility and like Ficklen, also found Frazier on social media and agreed to sub-lease space from Frazier for $2,000. But then the Wises' got wise to Frazier and found out this man of the cloth wasn’t coming clean.
“We later found out he was a sex offender,” says Wise.
Frazier is in the sex offender database in Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, Utah, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, and Florida stemming from a 2007 conviction in Oregon that involved an adult female.
The Wise’s said the deal was off and wanted their money back, but never received it. They filed a claim in Duval County Court and won a $2,000 judgment.
But it’s not just Jacksonville.
Action News Jax’s affiliate in Kansas City was onto Frazier before he moved to Northeast Florida, where the television station reports he was accused by a half dozen people of defrauding them.
Many members of Frazier’s flock claimed they paid him for various services, only for Frazier not to deliver and keep the money. Frazier was confronted by a reporter at his church but pretended he was someone else.
“To have someone you trust a pastor, take your money is hurtful,” says Markita Ryan who had hoped to build a catering business at a Kanas City church. She said she paid Frazier $1,000 to rent the space, but he would never let her use it.
Becker went looking for Frazier at three of his last known addresses in Jacksonville, but he was nowhere to be found.
“If he was watching, I would say I forgive you,” said Wise, who can forgive but Ficklen cannot forget.
“How dare you to do this to someone to do this to someone and to use God with it,” says Ficklen.
According to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Frazier’s last known address is now in Salem, Oregon.
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