Priest pleads guilty to stealing from parish
Published: Sunday, October 9, 2011 1:29 AM MDT
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Roman Catholic priest who headed one of the largest church congregations in Nevada pleaded guilty Friday to federal fraud charges and admitted siphoning $650,000 from his parish gift shop, votive candle collection, prayer funds and bank accounts, authorities said.
Monsignor Kevin McAuliffe pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas to three mail fraud charges, U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden said.
McAuliffe, 58, headed St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Summerlin and served on the Las Vegas Diocese financial committee from 2006 to 2010. He admitted in a plea memorandum that he took the money from 2002 to 2010, Bogden said in a statement.
He could face up to 60 years in prison and a $750,000 fine at sentencing Jan. 6 before U.S. District Judge James Mahan, Bogden said.
The diocese said McAuliffe had been removed as pastor of the church in northwest Las Vegas and relieved of Diocese duties.
“The diocese and parish have been cooperating fully with federal authorities,” diocese Bishop Joseph Pepe said in a statement.
Pepe, head of the regional church administration since 2001, said church administrators were “fully engaged in the handling of this matter internally.”
The accounting firm Bradshaw Smith was hired to conduct a forensic financial audit after the FBI notified church officials of the investigation in June, diocese spokeswoman Rachel Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson said the allegations involved the parish only and not accounts belonging to the diocese.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported in June that McAuliffe, who was at the church since 1997, had been placed on leave as head of the 7,000-family congregation while an “allegation of a financial nature” was investigated.
In September, the Rev. James Jankowski, interim pastor of the church, published a plea in the church newsletter for parishioners to be patient.
Bogden said McAuliffe held a key position of financial responsibility at the parish, with access to church cash and bank accounts, and the authority to reimburse himself for items charged to his personal credit card.
The monsignor admitted “taking cash from the gift shop, the votive candle collection, the missions and novenas fund and the general bank account,” Bogden said, and hid the moves by underreporting parish income to the diocese.
McAuliffe also served on the Las Vegas Diocese financial committee and was a signatory to 2008, 2009 and 2010 financial statements sent to the Catholic Archdiocese in San Francisco, Bodgen said.
Friday’s plea agreement came before an indictment was filed, and a record of the case was not immediately posted on the court’s online record-keeping system.
http://www.mohavedailynews.com/a ... f04741008437636.txt |