Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 24, 1993                   TAG: 9311240177
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Medium

BISHOP'S DAUGHTER PLEADS GUILTY TO BANK FRAUD

Christine L. Felton, daughter of Bishop L.E. Willis Sr., pleaded guilty Monday to one count of bank fraud. She will be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Feb. 2.

Willis is former vice chairman of the state Democratic Party, bishop of the Church of God in Christ and owner of Willis Broadcasting Corp., a chain of more than 20 radio stations.

Felton, 41, has been secretary of Willis Family Broadcasting, a North Carolina-based radio chain she co-owns with her three siblings. Willis sold nine stations to Willis Family Broadcasting in 1991 and 1992.

Felton admitted writing more than $380,000 in bad checks, then covering her overdrawn account with money diverted from her father's corporate accounts. She said she used the scheme to finance shopping sprees from December 1990 to September 1992.

Neither Willis nor Felton could be reached for comment Tuesday night. A woman who answered the phone at Willis' home said the bishop was out of town. There was no listing for Felton.

Willis earlier told investigators he was unaware of his daughter's scheme until New Atlantic Bank uncovered it in September 1992.

Court records show the scheme began when Felton bounced two personal checks. Margaret Meggett Shannon, a clerk at New Atlantic Bank in Norfolk, contacted Felton and was told to cover the checks with money from Willis' corporate accounts.

Shannon agreed after Felton promised to provide an authorization letter from her father. The letter never came, but Shannon continued to move money to cover Felton's bad checks, court records state.

In return, Felton gave Shannon loans and gifts, including electronics items and household furnishings, according to court records. Shannon's take was about $30,000.

The bank discovered the scheme in August 1992, and Shannon was fired a month later. She pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to misapplication of bank funds and later was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $4,000.

Felton's scheme is the latest in a string of legal and financial problems that began for Willis in the late 1980s when his Crusade for Christ ministry received $400,000 in loans from Clarence Britt of Hampton. Britt later was convicted of cocaine dealing and sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison.

The government seized the Britt notes, saying the money loaned to Willis came from drug proceeds. In August 1991, Willis agreed to repay the government more than $580,000 for the original loan plus interest.

Last year, Willis pleaded guilty to illegally structuring the repayment of an $88,500 loan from a Norfolk State University vice president in 1989. Willis repaid the loan by making a series of cash payments of less than $10,000 each. The federal structuring law, which took effect in 1987 to thwart money-laundering, requires that cash transactions of more than $10,000 be reported to federal authorities.

Willis was sentenced to four months of home detention and two years of probation, and was fined $10,000.