CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Russell Working and Dan Mihalopoulos
Tribune staff reporters
Published February 20, 2005
Watching satellite TV news reports from the old country at their homes in Chicago, members of a Greek Orthodox parish on the Northwest Side were shocked to recognize the young, bearded priest in police custody.
It was their former pastor, Iakovos Giosakis, who disappeared almost four years ago after they accused him of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from the parish.
Before finding himself at the center of a growing scandal involving sex, drugs, trial-fixing and trafficking in precious icons, Giosakis served Sts. Athanasios and John Church in Chicago for about two years. He fled the country days after Chicago police seized a computer, church financial records and personal documents in a raid of the apartment where he lived as the guest of an elderly parishioner.