Missouri pastor asks to retract guilty plea in fraud case

ST. LOUIS -- A Missouri pastor sentenced to seven years in prison after admitting he bilked $3.3 million from at least 18 mostly elderly investors wants to rescind his guilty plea, challenging the constitutionality of the federal laws under which he was prosecuted.

In a four-page motion, James Staley III seeks a Nov. 16 trial in which U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch should "have the opportunity to testify as to the veracity" of the laws applied to his case. He pleaded guilty in April and was sentenced in August.

Some of Staley's terminology in his court filing is common to anti-government "sovereign citizens" who declare themselves outside the bounds of federal and local legal constraints. Staley, now imprisoned in Marion, Illinois, writes he is the "registered owner" of his name and uses trademark and copyright symbols behind it -- often indicators of someone with a sovereign citizen philosophy, according to the FBI's website.

Federal prosecutors said Staley was not registered to sell securities in Missouri, but he earned more than $570,000 in commissions while peddling investment products he said carried minimal risk and yielded large, guaranteed returns, in some cases 30 percent to 40 percent. They said victims invested with him because he was a "nice religious man," and clergy by nature could be trusted.

Yet in many cases, Staley wound up plunging those investors -- some with dementia -- into financial ruin. During Staley's sentencing hearing, victims or their survivors called Staley everything from "insidious" to "disgusting and sickening."

One told the judge Staley was "slick, manipulative and deceitful" in stealing nearly $600,000 from her but reimbursing her just $407, meaning "at this rate I should be (finally) compensated for my losses when I'm 5,800 years old."

A federal prosecutor has said Staley was earning more than $120,000 per year for his work as a pastor and lived for free in a million-dollar home rented by his church. He has repaid just $1,950 in restitution.

Staley called himself overzealous and lamented that he should have done his homework about the investments he pitched.