NEW YORK
New York Daily News
BY CORKY SIEMASZKO and ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Msgr. Eugene Clark, who is accused of having an affair with his secretary, apparently didn't engage in any financial hanky- panky, a review of audits by the Archdiocese of New York has found.
The review was spurred when Clark, 79, resigned last month after a videotape revealed him checking into an Amagansett, L.I., motel room with his longtime secretary Laura DeFilippo, 46.
"Based on a review of those audits, all of the financial records of St. Patrick's Cathedral appear to be in order," archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling said. "We have found no information that would indicate misuse of parish funds. We continue to monitor the situation."
St. Pat's had annual audits performed by an outside firm until Clark took over in 2001, when he hired an in-house auditor, Zwilling said.
That arrangement didn't work, he said, so the cathedral hired accounting firm KPMG.
Clark, who has denied an affair, has dropped out of sight, no longer living at St. Pat's and performing no assignments or duties for the archdiocese.