‘Church for the Healthy Self’ Was $25M Ponzi Scheme, SEC Says

Two California pastors ran a $25 million Ponzi scheme targeting the area’s Vietnamese community, the SEC said March 13.

Kent R.E. Whitney and David Lee Parrish used their purported church, the Church for the Healthy Self, to solicit investments, promising a tax-deductible 12 percent return, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint.

Whitney allegedly founded the church just three months after his release from prison for an earlier investment scam he ran with Parrish. He promised investors they would “only lose money in the event of a ‘nuclear war,’” the SEC told the U.S. District Court for the Central ...