MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Husband/wife team allegedly bilked own church and nonprofit.

$2,784 for shoes. $71,342 for restaurants. $169,462 for travel.

These are just some of the ways the husband and wife co-pastors of a Minnesota church used charitable assets as their “personal piggy banks,” state prosecutors claim.

In a complaint filed April 2 by the office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison Larry, Pastors Larry and Sharon Cook have been accused of misusing more than $2 million over a nearly 6-year period. The couple allegedly took the money from Real Believers Faith Center as well as a separate nonprofit, Les Jolies School of Dance, for personal use.

“This Complaint exposes brazen and systematic abuse in Minnesota’s charitable sector, where nonprofit organizations intended to serve the public good were instead exploited as personal piggy banks by those entrusted to protect them,” the complaint alleges. The Attorney General’s Office also filed a temporary restraining order to “protect nonprofit assets from being diverted and concealed when the defendants learned of the lawsuit.”

The Cooks face multiple charges, including breach of nonprofit director and other fiduciary duties under the Minnesota Nonprofit Corporation Act, and breach of trust. The church, dance school, and multiple other officers of those organizations also face prosecution.

“The breadth of wrongdoing is staggering: at least $2 million in nonprofit assets was siphoned through cash withdrawals, CashApp payments, and pledged as collateral for risky loans that served no charitable purpose,” the complaint states. “Defendants not only misused charitable funds, but they operated without basic governance safeguards, failed to maintain tax-exempt status, failed to maintain registration with the [attorney general’s office], and dissolved a nonprofit mid-investigation without the legally required notice to the AGO in an attempt to evade oversight.”

Prosecutors argue the Cooks obscured the source of their wealth by posing as successful entrepreneurs running multiple profitable businesses — a claim they say was false. For example, in 2022, Real Believers Faith Center reported the purchase of a gas station it renamed the Lion’s Den. However, according to the complaint, the purchase never occurred.

“The Defendants concealed their misconduct through sham governance and by creating deliberate confusion between nonprofit and for-profit entities,” the filing claims. “This pattern of deception and self-dealing strikes at the heart of public trust in charitable organizations.”

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