By Michael Beebe
Buffalo News
July 19, 2009
http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/story/735942.html
Stole during 2000-08 at Most Holy Redeemer
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| Rev. F. Norman Sullivan paid restitution and probably won't go to prison. Photo by Harry Scull Jr. / Buffalo News |
For a diocesan priest who made $20,000 a year for most of his career, the Rev. F. Norman Sullivan lived pretty well.
He owns a home on nine acres of wooded land in Colden, a condominium at the Estero Beach & Tennis Club in Fort Myers, Fla., and another condo in the U. S. Virgin Islands.
And on Thursday, when he pleaded guilty to stealing $213,732 from Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Cheektowaga — including taking money out of the collection plate—he avoided a prison term by repaying every cent of his theft.
What did he spend the money on? Both Sullivan, and his lawyer, Noel E. Bartlo, declined to talk with reporters after the priest’s guilty plea before State Supreme Court Justice Russell P. Buscaglia.
“No comment at this time,” Bartlo said. Sullivan, 74, dressed in a golf shirt and black trousers, looked dazed as he left court.
Because he repaid the money he stole, including a last check for $94,619.88 on Thursday, Buscaglia said he had agreed to impose five years’ probation on Sullivan when he returns for sentencing Oct. 5.
Sullivan could have faced up to seven years in prison for his guilty plea to a single count of grand larceny. Buscaglia threatened him with that prison term if Sullivan fails to show up for sentencing or commits another crime.
Assistant District Attorney John C. Doscher, chief of the Special Investigations Bureau, told Buscaglia that Sullivan stole from Most Holy Redeemer Parish from May 30, 2000, until Jan. 31, 2008.
The church has since been merged into St. Lawrence Church in Buffalo. Sullivan, ordained in 1963, had been pastor of the church since 1989.
It took a forensic accountant for prosecutors to track Sullivan’s thefts, Erie County District Attorney Frank A. Sedita III said after the court session.
“He’s in a position of trust and authority,” Sedita said of Sullivan. “He’s a Catholic priest. He shouldn’t be stealing from his parish.”
Sedita said Sullivan skimmed $1,700 a month from his parish’s collection, a theft he was able to pull off because, after he became pastor, he changed the rules: He counted the money by himself, Doscher said, in apparent contravention of diocesan rules.
“We don’t make diocesan policy,” Sedita said, “but it sure looks like the fox was guarding the henhouse.”
The Diocese of Buffalo issued a terse statement saying that it had cooperated in the investigation.
“We are pleased that restitution has been made in this case,” the statement said. The diocese said Sullivan is retired.
Sedita said an audit by forensic accountant Timothy J. McPoland of Freed Maxick & Battaglia showed that Sullivan stole:
• $88,883 in cash donations from church envelopes from 2003 to 2006. “Simply stated, he controlled the count,” Sedita said. “One for me, one for you.”
• $36,445 in a check-substitution scheme. Doscher told the judge that when the church got contributions, Sullivan put the money in the church collection funds, then helped himself.
• $20,372 in checks he wrote himself.
• $66,000 in checks that came from parish accounts.
“My personal favorite,” Sedita said, “was $1,615 from parish bell jars.” This came from legal gambling at the parish.
The thefts are believed to be the largest from the Diocese of Buffalo since Anthony F. Franjoine, who as diocesan comptroller stole $1.4 million in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Franjoine was sentenced to 2c to 8 years in prison for his thefts. Doscher also was the prosecutor in that case.
Sullivan apparently inherited some of his money. County records show that the Colden house was given to him in 1989 by an uncle, Arthur T. Sullivan, who also was a priest.
Sedita said some of the funds Sullivan stole from his church were used for home repairs at the Colden house.
Land records in Lee County, Fla., show that F. Norman Sullivan, with the same Colden address, bought the condo in Fort Myers for $79,100 in 1982. It’s now assessed at $168,000.
Property records in the U. S. Virgin Islands show that Sullivan is 100 percent owner of a condo at Frenchman’s Bay.
Sedita said that he understood that Sullivan inherited some money but that even if the money to buy the condos came from thefts, it is beyond the five-year statue of limitations to prosecute him.
Prosecutors got onto the case with two anonymous tips, Doscher said. Once he called the Buffalo Diocese, officials there said that they also were doing an audit of funds missing from Most Holy Redeemer.
When that audit was finished, it came up with $104,000 that was missing, Sedita said.
He said that when he took office in January, he met with his bureau chiefs, decided to make the Most Holy Redeemer thefts a priority and got County Executive Chris Collins to grant him $50,000 to use for a forensic accountant. After examining the accounts, McPoland found that Sullivan had stolen an additional $109,000.
Investigators from the district attorney’s office met with Sullivan, who Sedita said “matter- of-factly” admitted taking the money.
The guilty plea was delayed, Sedita said, until Sullivan had repaid all the money he stole.
Contact: mbeebe@buffnews.com
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