A priest in Watertown, WI. is being investigated for theft because he was sucked into Nigerian money scam.
Every week, I get about 10 e-mails from Nigeria or Nigeria related type money scams. Most of the time, I just ignore them, though every now and then, I will play games with the e-mail sender, for kicks and grins and see how far I can go.
Well, anyways this priest, Thomas Marr, from Watertown, WI. got involved and ended up stealing around $600,000 from the church and parishioners. From the Watertown Daily Times: Attorneys for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, acting as special prosecutors for Jefferson County, on Tuesday filed a summons and criminal complaint in Jefferson County Circuit Court against Thomas Marr, 64, a former Watertown priest, alleging one count of theft in a business setting and a second count of theft by fraud.Marr, now a Madison resident, served as a priest for Watertown's St. Bernard's Catholic Church....“Marr would represent to these individuals that he needed these funds to help out a member of the congregation in need or to assist him in purchasing a residence for both him and another priest for whom he was caring,” the complaint stated.The church's bills went unpaid for a period of time and an investigation began. Marr allegedly engaged in loans of money to Eith, who had financial dealings in Africa. Marr and Eith's methods of funding became tangled up with numerous members of the church according to the complaint. Over the course of the criminal complaint it is alleged that Marr borrowed amounts as small as $800 and as much as $47,000 from particular individuals.The problems with finances began to be noticed around November of 2008 when St. Bernard's Administrative Assistant Sue Nampel noticed that bills were unpaid. President of St. Bernard's Church Thomas Levi indicated to investigators that he had learned the church had approximately $100,000 to $125,000 in unpaid bills. St. Bernard's Bookkeeper and Business Manager Alan Reinhard could not provide a good explanation for the unpaid bills and an IOU from Marr was subsequently discovered.
http://www.wdtimes.com/articles/2010/09/29/news/news2.txt
This priest, a person who went to college, got himself into big time trouble and just kept on stealing and stealing. He put his parish in serious financial trouble and he threw away the trust people have in priests and the church. This man did a whole lot of damage to himself, parishioners, fellow priests, the diocese of Madison and the public at large. But yet, he is still a priest, living in Madison, WI. There has been no apology as of yet, from the priest or the diocese, from what I have seen.
I guess greed isn't limited to Las Vegas residents and visitors. I guess, it can also find parish priests in small town Wisconsin.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment