The Jefferson County district attorney’s office is checking out an Aurora woman’s claim that her ex-husband and embattled pastor Acen Phillips convinced her to take out a $100,000 loan as collateral for an out-of-state business venture, but instead set up an account without her knowledge and spent the money themselves.
Now, six years later, Michele Wheeler said she faces losing her house to foreclosure because she is being held responsible for payments she can’t afford.
“Once people find out they’ve been had by Rev. Phillips, they go underground because they’re embarrassed and ashamed, like I am,” Wheeler said. “He is very persuasive. He can talk a drowning man into a bottle of water.”
Phillips did not respond to phone calls last week seeking comment, and Jim Wheeler declined to comment.
Michele Wheeler is a former close friend of Phillips and attended his Mount Gilead Baptist Church. She said her ex-husband, a church deacon, and Phillips persuaded her in 2001 to take out a $100,000 equity line of credit as collateral on a property deal in Illinois.
Wheeler said she believed her signature would be required for the credit line to be tapped. However, Wheeler said she signed a blank document – an electronic funds-transfer authorization.
Later, going through her ex-husband’s records, she said, she discovered an account had been added after she signed it – one bearing the name of a company incorporated years ago by Phillips and his wife and Jim and Michele Wheeler. The company invested in a failed strip mall, Michele Wheeler said.
She provided copies of the loan documents to The Denver Post, as well as canceled checks drawn from the account bearing Acen Phillips’ signature. The checks include two totaling $4,700 to Phillips’ wife, E.L. Phillips; a $5,000 check to Jim Wheeler; as well as ones to businesses with ties to Acen Phillips.
Michele Wheeler said she knew nothing about the loan being cashed out until the lender, KeyBank, called in October and asked about a delinquent payment. She said she believes her husband had been making payments up to that point.
A KeyBank spokesman in Denver, Jack Sparks, said privacy laws prevent the bank from discussing details. But he said KeyBank lawyers have been in touch with Wheeler’s attorney.
A Jefferson County district attorney’s investigator met with Wheeler, but she lacked sufficient documentation for a case, DA spokeswoman Pam Russell said. Russell said her office plans to contact Wheeler soon to review new documentation.
Said Michele Wheeler: “If my story helps other people not become victim to this smooth-talking, fast-talking man of the cloth and his head deacon, then hopefully, that’s the satisfaction that I’ll get out of it.”
