Former Myrtle Beach-area Veterans charity leader gets prison sentence after federal charge
The founder of a former Myrtle Beach-area veterans charity was sentenced Thursday to nearly two years in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges related to money laundering.
A judge ordered James “Billy” Arehart to spend 21 months in prison and pay a $250,000 judgment forfeiture, according to Scottie Howell, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia.
He pleaded guilty last July to one count of engaging in a monetary transaction with property derived from unlawful activity in exchange for the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreeing to drop other charges, including mail and wire fraud.
Arehart started his nonprofit Providing Hope Va to assist homeless veterans in 2018 while living in Virginia before relocating operations to Loris in 2020. He raised more than $9 million through 2021 primarily by selling tickets to raffles for high-end vehicles by advertising through Facebook, according to court records.
Providing Hope Va had announced plans in early 2023 to open a Veterans resource center in Loris. The city annexed the property off Highway 701 South, and the charity solicited funds for the project, but Arehart just used those funds “as he saw fit,” according to the indictment.
Arehart falsely represented to the public that money spent on raffle tickets was tax deductible, despite IRS code specifically restricting deductions for purchases of games-of-chance tickets, he admitted as part of the plea deal. That caused ticket purchasers to submit fraudulent tax deductions to the IRS.
Arehart, who had sole control of the nonprofit’s finances, awarded himself an increasing amount of salary and bonuses from its funds, including $162,000 in 2019, $292,000 in 2020 and $525,000 in 2021, court records show. He also used at least $300,000 in charity funds to improve his Myrtle Beach residence, the indictment stated.
While Arehart faced up to 10 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office recommended a reduced sentence, in part, because raffle ticket purchasers did receive raffle tickets, despite being misled about where that funding would go, and he spent a majority of the charity’s proceeds on legitimate expenditures, including the luxury cars used in raffles, court records show.
The Loris property Arehart had pledged to turn into a Veterans resource center remains vacant, and the Providing Hope Va website is no longer active after previously showing the message: “We are taking a break. We want to thank you all for the support and community you have shown for the past several years.”
This story was originally published March 24, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
