ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - A Texas man pled guilty on March 27 for scamming an Albany church out of millions of dollars that were supposed to be spent on building repairs.

Andrew Mitchell, also known as “Andrew Aga,” pled guilty to one count of mail fraud, according to the Georgia Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire.

Mitchell was hired as a public adjuster for Friendship Missionary Baptist Church in Albany after their campus sustained damage from Hurricane Michael in 2018, a press release said.

An inspection cited the church as having about $216,000 worth of repairs needed after the Category 3 storm hit Albany. Friendship Missionary was insured by Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company.

Brotherhood issued Friendship Missionary $183,207.89 on Nov. 15, 2018 for partial repairs.

In January of 2019, Mitchell sent Brotherhood an itemized estimate of repairs that totaled about $2.1 million. Over time, the amount Mitchell claimed the church needed for their repairs grew to 7.1 million.

The insurance company sent the Albany church a check for $3,376,102.18 in July of 2019.

Mitchell then requested that Brotherhood change the payees to Friendship Missionary Baptist Church and Loss Consultants of Texas, LLC doing business as Texas Claim Consultants, and he requested that the check be sent to an address in Texas.

After months of back and forth and the price increasing to $7.495 million, Friendship Missionary Baptist Church of Broad Avenue, Inc. allegedly signed a contract with Blue Key Construction for $18.6 million in June of 2020. The church’s pastor denied knowing about or signing this contract. Representatives from the construction company also denied ever signing it.

In total, the company issued $6,866,606.80 in payments intended for hurricane repairs at the church.

Now, Mitchell faces up to 30 years in prison, to be followed by at least three years of supervised release and a $1,000,000 fine.

“It is disheartening to see someone willing to defraud a place of worship in the wake of a major natural disaster, especially when its congregation trusted the defendant and all those involved to act lawfully and help them repair their historic downtown facility after Hurricane Michael,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Shanelle Booker. “Together with our federal prosecutorial team, investigators from the Georgia Insurance Commissioner’s Office thoroughly examined years of fraud to ensure that Andrew Mitchell is held accountable for his crime.”

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