Former Rogers City Council candidate ordered to pay $71K after taking money from church’s cemetery fund

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — A former Rogers City Council candidate was ordered to pay more than $70,000 in restitution for money he took from a church’s cemetery fund.

Billy Lee Weaver III, 45, was arrested in September 2023 on three counts of theft of property and one count of fraudulent use of a credit card.

Weaver was ordered to pay $71,000 in restitution and placed on eight years of state-supervised probation.

According to an affidavit, the Rogers Police Department received a report on Aug. 25 that Weaver, who also goes by “Trey Weaver,” had stolen around $71,000 from the Mount Hebron Historical Church and Cemetery Fund.

The documents said that Weaver was the president of the organization.

The person who notified RPD said they were made aware of the theft from the back and after they reviewed bank statements, it appeared that Weaver had used the account as his personal checking account until it was almost empty.

Detectives were provided bank statements from the account. On Oct. 15, 2021, the account balance was $72,055.85. The account balance on Aug. 18, 2023, was $14.44.

Multiple personal transactions were made to businesses such as Chick-Fil-A, Walmart, Banana Republic, Apple and Doordash.

The bank statement also showed transactions from Print Place on Sept. 9, 2022, for $413.29 and from Oct. 9, 2022, for $339.89.

The September transaction was reportedly for 2,000 “campaign doorhangers.” The October transaction was for an additional 1,600 doorhangers.

According to court documents, Print Place staff told police that the artwork for the hangers included slogans such as “Elect Trey Weaver for City Council.”

“Other transactions show a pattern of activity which appears to correspond with life events shown on Trey’s Facebook page such as a trip to Branson, MO, for a dance competition and with Trey’s efforts to campaign for Rogers City Council in 2022,” the affidavit said.

Weaver ran for the Rogers City Council Ward 3 position in 2022 and placed third in the election with 13.49% of the vote.

Weaver reportedly went to the Rogers Police Department on Sept. 8 to speak with investigators. He stated that he “misused” around $70,000 from the Mount Hebron Historical Church and Cemetery Fund, and that this started around January 2022.

Weaver said that a contributing factor to his alleged behavior was his wife losing her job in the first few months of 2022. He said that the payments started out as house payments. He said that he had plans to pay back the funds with several “large transactions” that he had set up, but they all fell through.

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