Ebenezer Oduntan used his control of a County Kildare church's finances in a prolonged scheme involving theft, deception and false company information. He was convicted on 87 counts concerning more than €125,000. None of the money had been repaid by his February 2026 appeal. The Court of Appeal reduced his six-and-a-half-year immediate term by one year, leaving a final five and a half years to serve.

87 convictions73 theft, five deception and nine company-law offences.
Over €125,000Aggregate amount involved in the theft charges.
€544,896Nominal final-term prison-space benchmark.

Sole control over trusted funds

Oduntan was pastor of the City of David Church in Naas, a branch of the Nigerian-based Redeemed Christian Church of God. From 2012 to 2020, he had sole access to and control over the church's accounts. That position rested on the esteem in which the congregation held him and on an absence of standard financial controls.

The Corporate Enforcement Authority's official conviction statement records 73 theft counts, five deception counts and nine company-law offences for providing false information. The aggregate amount in the theft charges exceeded €125,000. The jury heard from the Charities Regulator, Companies Registration Office, Revenue Commissioners, banks, a credit union, church members, CEA investigators and a senior forensic accountant.

The trial evidence included cheques made payable to cash and cheques of up to €20,000 payable directly to Oduntan. Irish court reporting attributed more than €75,000 to blank cheques and about €52,000 to a credit-union account. He also used church funds intended to help parishioners for his wife's business and personal health insurance.

The donation-tax scheme

The case extended beyond taking congregation funds. The CEA alleged an elaborate deception in which qualifying donations were inflated so that Revenue reimbursed more than it should have under the Charitable Donation Scheme. The publicly reported aggregate theft figure does not separately quantify the excess paid by Revenue, so this page does not add an invented State-loss figure.

The jury heard that five times Oduntan's declared income passed through his bank accounts between 2012 and 2018. Judge Martina Baxter later characterised the conduct as prolonged, premeditated and well planned, involving sophisticated fraud, lies and a serious breach of fiduciary duty.

Oduntan told authorities in September 2020 that he wanted to confess after a crisis of conscience. The court record also showed that the church had already discovered there were no funds available when assistance was sought for a member who had lost his job. The prosecution did not accept his explanation for the timing.

Thirty-three pleas and 54 jury verdicts

Oduntan initially contested 54 charges. Midway through the three-week trial, he pleaded guilty to 19 theft counts, five deception counts and nine offences of supplying false information to the Companies Registration Office. The jury then convicted him on the remaining 54 counts, producing 87 convictions in total.

The court heard that he had no prior convictions. His admissions established that he acted alone, but he continued not to accept the jury's verdicts. As of the sentence appeal, no restitution had been made to either the congregation or Revenue.

The original sentence

On 26 April 2024, Naas Circuit Criminal Court imposed seven years on the deception counts, six and a half years for theft and three and a half years for the company-law offences. The terms were concurrent, with the final six months of each suspended. The controlling seven-year term therefore produced six and a half years of immediate custody.

The sentence was backdated to 13 March 2024, when Oduntan entered custody. Concurrent terms are not added together: the original disposition was not 17 years, and this file does not present it that way.

The Court of Appeal reduced the term

Oduntan appealed the severity of his sentence, not the 87 convictions. On 20 February 2026, the Court of Appeal found the original headline sentence somewhat too high, while describing the adjustment as marginal. Mr Justice Alexander Owens quashed the original sentence and substituted six years with the final six months suspended.

The final immediate custodial term is therefore five years and six months. The appeal did not acquit Oduntan, erase any count or disturb the finding that the case involved a serious breach of trust. It reduced punishment by one year.

Chronology

  • 2012 to 2020: Oduntan controls the City of David Church's finances during the period covered by the theft and fraud scheme.
  • September 2020: Oduntan notifies authorities that he wants to admit fraud after church members have discovered the lack of funds.
  • 2020: Oduntan ceases to be a member of the church.
  • 13 March 2024: after a three-week trial, 33 guilty pleas and 54 jury verdicts produce 87 convictions; Oduntan enters custody.
  • 26 April 2024: Naas Circuit Criminal Court imposes concurrent terms led by seven years with the final six months suspended.
  • 20 February 2026: the Court of Appeal reduces the controlling sentence to six years with six months suspended.

The taxpayer-cost boundary

The Irish Prison Service reported that an available, staffed prison space cost an average of €99,072 in 2024, excluding capital expenditure. Applying that national system average to the final five-and-a-half-year immediate term produces a €544,896 nominal prison-space benchmark.

This is not an invoice, audited marginal expenditure or a statement of what Oduntan personally cost the prison system. It holds the 2024 national average flat for five and a half years and does not adjust for backdating, time served, remission, release arrangements, inflation or future changes in cost. The suspended six months are excluded.

The more than €125,000 involved in the theft charges is a separate, court-established loss figure and is not folded into the prison benchmark. The excess Revenue reimbursement was not separately quantified. CEA investigation, Garda, prosecution, three-week trial, appeal and legal-aid costs are also excluded because no reliable case-specific allocations were published.

Naturalisation: what the source establishes

BreakingNews.ie, in its sentencing report by Seán McCárthaigh, explicitly describes Oduntan as a naturalised Irish citizen. That is the qualifying identity evidence for this file. It establishes citizenship obtained through naturalisation rather than an inference drawn from his name, appearance, church affiliation or address.

The reviewed court and CEA sources do not state Oduntan's country of birth or previous nationality. The fact that the church is a branch of a Nigerian-based organisation does not establish that Oduntan is Nigerian, and this page makes no such claim. No asylum, refugee, deportation or removal history was found or inferred.

Questions for public accountability

  1. What exact sum was taken from the congregation, and what separately quantified excess was paid by Revenue?
  2. What recovery action has been taken given that no restitution had been made by the sentence appeal?
  3. What case-specific public expenditure arose from the CEA investigation, prosecution, three-week trial, imprisonment and appeal?
  4. Did the church, Charities Regulator or Companies Registration Office introduce additional controls following the case?
  5. Can the Charitable Donation Scheme be audited earlier when claimed donations diverge sharply from an organisation's real finances?

Sources

Record checked: 2 August 2026. The 20 February 2026 Court of Appeal disposition is the latest located outcome. It reduced the sentence but did not disturb the convictions. No official published appellate judgment was located, so the appeal account relies on named Irish court reporting. The naturalised-citizen description is quoted only to the extent the source supports; country of birth and former nationality are not inferred. The €544,896 figure is a conditional system-average benchmark for the final immediate term, not a case invoice.