Greenfield pastor convicted in 2010 theft, forgery case again ordered to pay restitution

A restitution hearing was held last week in Highland County Common Pleas Court, where Highland County Common Pleas Court Judge Rocky Coss ordered a former area pastor to pay $150 per month toward the over $72,000 he currently owes.

The hearing was held just over a year after Coss denied a request to seal the record of former local pastor James Blaine, and more than 14 years after Blaine was sentenced for stealing from the Greenfield church where he was employed.

According to an order entered by Coss, the judge ordered Nov. 21 for Blaine “to pay $145 were month plus $5 service fee toward his restitution beginning Jan. 15, 2025 and on the 15th of each month thereafter. Further, [Blaine] is ordered to pay additional court costs.”  

As reported by Brandy Chandler of The Highland County Press, “Blaine was sentenced to nearly five years in prison Oct. 1, 2010 — one month shy of the maximum — for stealing funds from the church. Blaine was also ordered to pay restitution to the church in the amount of $267,911.11.

“In August 2010, Blaine pleaded guilty to one count of forgery, a felony of the fifth degree, and aggravated theft, a felony of the third degree. The theft charge alleged that Blaine had stolen more than $100,000 from the Good Shepherd Church in Greenfield. The remaining charges on the 17-count indictment filed in May were dismissed.”

According to court records, Highland County Prosecutor Anneka Collins filed a request for hearing Sept. 17, writing that Blaine allegedly “still owes a balance of $72,867.15 through the Highland County Victim Witness Assistance Program.”

The documentation with the request stated that Blaine “has not made any payments toward restitution since October 2019” and that he wrote to the Victim Witness program this year “claiming: ‘I am currently paid in full through September 2044.’”

The request also included a ledger documenting the amount Blaine has paid, owing $91,716.03 as of Jan. 1, 2014 and owing $72,867.15 as of a final $7,500 payment made Oct. 1, 2019.

In November 2023, a hearing was held after Blaine, represented by attorney Kathryn Hapner, filed a motion to seal the record of his conviction. As noted, Coss denied the motion.

After Blaine’s release from prison in 2013, there were several hearings and filings regarding restitution, according to court records, with a filing in June 2015 determining that the balance was $89,277.03. When Blaine’s probation ended in 2018, the balance was $85,887.37.

During last year’s proceedings over Blaine’s motion to seal, Collins wrote that Blaine still “owes over $70,000 in restitution to the church.” Collins told the judge that Blaine said that he made a $7,500 payment to the church “25 years in advance” as a supposed final payment. The prosecutor said that neither the Victim Witness nor “any person we dealt with at the church” agreed to any such arrangement, nor did it come before the court for approval.

Blaine said it was “not correct” that he would not make any restitution payments in the future, but he said that he had made an arrangement with a former member of the church, who has since died. He claimed that the church “should have” documentation for this agreement. (His arrangement was to pay $25 per month in restitution, so it equaled out to 25 years’ worth of payments.)

“I wanted to sell this property, and of course they had the lien,” Blaine said last year. “I met with [the congregant] and discussed it with him and said look, I’m paying you $25 a month. I’ll sell this property and give you this money, this block sum, as prepayment. We sat down and figured it up. It was 25 years in advance.

“I said that 25 years from now, I may or may not be alive. If I’m alive, I will resume the payments. If I’m not, this is probably the final payment. He said ‘the church can use the money now. That’s quite all right.’ That’s the agreement we made.”

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