'Appalled' judge sentences pastor for theft from Oso victims
OAK HARBOR — Bodies were still buried beneath the mud of the Oso hillside in May 2014 when pastor Gary Ray funneled $30,000 in cash — donations meant for grieving families of the 43 killed — into a church bank account where only he had access.
“People were still searching for the dead,” said deputy prosecutor Michael Safstrom in court Thursday. “So this is the most glaring contradiction between public words and private deeds. Mr. Ray was the public face of the Oso Community Chapel.”
At the time, nobody but Ray and perhaps God knew that not a dollar would go to the slide victims.
Island County Superior Court Judge Alan Hancock sentenced Ray to 18 months in prison Thursday, for a series of swindles that went on for years, totaling over $152,000 stolen from Oso families, collection plates and his own church congregations in Snohomish and Island counties.
“The court is appalled by Ray’s shameful fraud and theft, his betrayal and abuse of trust,” Hancock said from the bench. “It is almost unprecedented, the level of fraud and abuse that has occurred in the present case. ‘Thou shalt not steal!’ The hypocrisy of a man of the cloth committing these crimes is stunning.”
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