Trenton pastor faces insurance fraud indictment
TRENTON » A self-ordained pastor who recently confessed to stealing $12,000 has new criminal charges to answer.
The Rev. Terry Wells, 42, of Trenton, got indicted last Friday by a grand jury of his peers, this time getting slapped with one count of third-degree insurance fraud.
“I don’t even know anything about the indictment,” Wells said Tuesday when The Trentonian asked whether he had any comments. “They said I had a co-defendant. I don’t have a co-defendant. I am not guilty for nothing.”
On Jan. 30, 2017, Wells committed insurance fraud by knowingly making false or misleading statements regarding a car accident, according to charging documents.
Wells falsely claimed he was a pedestrian who had gotten struck by his own vehicle after his vehicle got involved in a car accident while parked on Mechanics Avenue near his city home, a grand jury alleges. The indictment also says Wells hired an attorney for an injury claim with Allstate Insurance but that “video surveillance showed that Wells was not struck at all.”
“I never hired a personal injury lawyer,” Wells said Tuesday in an interview with the newspaper.
A co-defendant in the case, 26-year-old Andre Romero, pleaded guilty earlier this year and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month, according to court records. Romero is best known for being found not guilty in the January 2012 highway shooting murder of 23-yearold Daquan Dowling.
In the insurance fraud case, Romero claimed he “was a passenger in a vehicle that was involved in a car accident on Mechanics Avenue,” according to court documents. The complaints state Wells and Romero’s get-rich scheme was foiled by “video surveillance” that showed Wells “was not struck by his vehicle or injured and that” Romero was “actually the driver” of the vehicle involved in the accident.
Wells, the founder of nonprofit My Brother’s Keeper Ministries in Trenton, continues to maintain his presumption of innocence in the insurance fraud case, once again reiterating he does not know Romero despite the criminal allegations saying they had both worked together on the fraudulent scheme.
Previous trouble
Wells is no stranger to law enforcement. He previously pleaded guilty last September to an amended count of disorderly persons theft by deception on allegations he bilked Joseph Wingate’s estate out of $12,000 to benefit himself as a religious figure seeking to bolster his church. He paid full restitution in the amount of $12,000 and had to further pay $325 in fines and penalties and was ordered to have no contact with the deceased victim’s family, according to court records.
Wells, an ex-con, previously served time in prison for admitting to being an accessory to murder in South Carolina.
In 2013, Wells purchased a massive Prospect Street warehouse from Capital Health for $1, hoping to remake the degraded building into a “one-stop shop” for city residents led by the prison-tothe-pulpit preacher. He has since been dogged by tax issues on the property, with the IRS temporarily yanking his tax-exempt status for failing to file the necessary paperwork.
Originally a proud early supporter of 2018 Trenton mayoral candidate Paul Perez, Wells says he is no longer immersing himself into the rough-and-tumble of city politics.
“I am just doing what I’ve been doing,” Wells said Tuesday, “helping the kids in the community. I am not involved in the politics stuff. I stick to (being) pastor.”
If convicted of third-degree insurance fraud, Wells could get sentenced to three to five years of state imprisonment.