By Susan Spencer-Wendel
Palm Beach Post
January 14, 2009
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/01/14/0114priest.html
WEST PALM BEACH- — An 81-year-old Catholic priest set to go to trial next week on a charge of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from his Delray Beach parish appears to be trying to strike a last-minute plea deal.
The Rev. John Skehan has reached an "amicable resolution" which will be presented to a judge on Jan. 21, the day his trial on a grand theft charge is scheduled to begin, his defense attorney wrote in a court filing. Attorney Scott Richardson did not return a call late this afternoon seeking comment.
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| Former Delray priests Francis Guinan (left) and John A. Skehan are accused of misappropriating $8.6 million from their church. |
Skehan is set to be tried at the same time as the Rev. Francis Guinan, 66, who is also charged with one count of grand theft over $100,000. Guinan, though, is expected to proceed with his trial, resolute on proving his innocence to a jury, his defense attorney, Richard Barlow, has said.
The charge is punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
A potential plea deal for Skehan comes after a judge already rejected one for him.
Circuit Judge Sandra McSorley, who has been at loggerheads with the lawyers, rejected a deal months ago that would put Skehan on probation, withhold a felony conviction and allow him to return to Ireland. The amount of restitution, if any, in that proposed deal is unknown, as it is not docketed in Skehan's criminal court file.
McSorley is due to rotate out of her criminal division next week. And another judge, possibly Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath, will reconsider a deal for Skehan.
A spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, Michael Edmondson, said he could not comment on any possible resolution in Skehan's case. A spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach, Alexis Walkenstein, said she could not comment on anything due to the ongoing criminal investigation.
The priests were arrested by Delray Beach police in 2006, accused of stealing offertory money from St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church. Allegations arose that Skehan - and much later Guinan - had misappropriated more than $8 million over decades.
Time magazine in 2007 called the scandal possibly "the worst known case of embezzlement in U.S. Catholicism," and it renewed calls across the country for more fiscal accountability within the church.
Detectives called Skehan and Guinan "professional money launderers" and said they had spent money on lavish trips, gambling and girlfriends.
Since the priests' arrest, amounts of money they could be held criminally liable for have been reduced by time limits set by law for prosecuting alleged crimes. Guinan, for example, will stand trial accused of stealing over $300,000.
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