By Daniel Bice
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
December 21, 2009
http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/79775107.html
Milwaukee -- People in Milwaukee know a lot about Jerome Listecki, the incoming Catholic archbishop.
The easygoing 60-year-old bishop of La Crosse is a Chicago native, a lawyer and a devoted White Sox fan.
But here's something that few know about the guy:
For a while, Listecki was a budding real estate mogul, buying and selling property in Illinois and Wisconsin beginning in the mid-'80s.
But a couple of those deals soured amid controversy.
 |
| Tom Lynn Listecki |
In particular, officials discovered that one of Listecki's business partners, a good friend from Chicago named Dennis Composto, was a swindler, having siphoned off funds from a church-run Catholic seminary to pay for a host of goodies, including a Wisconsin vacation condo he co-owned with Listecki and another church official. Composto was convicted for his deeds three years ago.
Throughout the ordeal, Listecki held onto the condo and the friendship. Only after Composto died in 2007 did Listecki sell off the property.
"Composto continued to deny any wrongdoing up until the very end," Julie Wolf, spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Archdiocese, said last week. "It's like you and I are good friends, and you're telling me, 'No, I had nothing to do with it.' Well, I'm not going to nail you to the wall."
Listecki is to be installed next month as the new spiritual leader of southeastern Wisconsin's nearly 700,000 Catholics. In the month since he was selected for the post, he has talked to the media about everything from his lengthy résumé to his thoughts on local sports teams.
But he has declined requests in recent weeks from No Quarter for an interview about his real estate deals.
"I don't think he wants to talk to you," Wolf said bluntly.
Speaking on his behalf, Wolf maintained that Listecki did not believe that his friend used any swindled cash to pay for his share of the joint real estate deals.
"There was no indication that any money that Mr. Composto used for his portion of it was ill-gotten," Wolf said. She later said Listecki was not familiar with the details of the litigation on the matter, despite news coverage of the case. "The (Chicago) Sun-Times didn't print the whole lawsuit."
In 2004, the Chicago Archdiocese sued Composto, accusing him of swiping more than $268,000 from St. Joseph College Seminary, located at Loyola University in Chicago. The suit alleged that he used some of the cash to help pay for a condo in Williams Bay, near Lake Geneva, that was held jointly by Composto, Listecki and another longtime friend.
"Bishop here co-owns vacation condo with embezzlement suspect," the Sun-Times shouted in a headline, referring to Listecki, then a Chicago auxiliary bishop.
The archdiocese later expanded the suit to say Composto also used embezzled dollars to pay down the loan on some undeveloped parcels in Walworth County that he again co-owned with Listecki and others.
All of this prompted a criminal investigation.
Composto eventually pleaded guilty in 2006 to bilking the seminary out of $96,000and agreed to pay $300,000 in restitution to the archdiocese.
He died the next year.
Not long after that, the three owners of the Williams Bay condo - Listecki, Composto's widow and Portland Archbishop John Vlazny - sold it for a tidy sum, splitting the proceeds evenly. Last year, Composto's widow bought out Listecki's interest in the undeveloped land in Walworth County.
John O'Malley, director of legal services for the Chicago Archdiocese, said his office conducted an internal investigation of the matter, interviewing Listecki as part of the process. The probe cleared Listecki of any wrongdoing.
"This is an interesting, sad story," O'Malley said. "The point is, Bishop Listecki had nothing to do with Composto's misconduct."
By all accounts, Listecki became friends with Composto and Vlazny while they were working in Chicago. All three held positions at or attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary North, a high school run by the Chicago Archdiocese before it closed in 2007.
The group was so close that Listecki had one of Composto's relatives as his administrative assistant when he was the auxiliary bishop in Chicago.
"That friendship grew over time," Wolf said. "I believe he said going back to the (Quigley) seminary is when they first met."
In the mid-'80s, Listecki, Composto, his wife and others bought some undeveloped land in the Town of Richmond in Walworth County for a little more than $12,000.
Listecki then purchased the Williams Bay condo for $61,000 in 1986, paying down about 20% and borrowing the rest from Kenosha Savings and Loan.
In 1993, Listecki refinanced the mortgage and officially brought Composto, his wife and Vlazny in on the deal.
The Chicago archdiocese accused Composto of diverting seminary cash during an 18-month period in 2002 and 2003 to buy books, videos and music, and to pay mortgages and lines of credit on multiple homes and properties. The suit said the money went for seven Illinois apartments or houses, the Williams Bay condo, the undeveloped Walworth County parcels and a house in Delavan.
Listecki had no financial stake in any of the other properties mentioned in the suit and criminal case. The Sun-Times said Composto and Listecki bought and sold other Illinois land that never came into dispute.
At the time of the suit, Composto had just been let go as controller for St. Joseph and he had filed an age discrimination complaint against the seminary. Listecki was on St. Joseph's board.
Despite the allegations, Wolf said Listecki did not consider selling off his interest in the condo and Walworth County land.
"In hindsight, they felt that if they had sold the property right away when the charges were filed, people might have come to the wrong conclusion, saying, 'See, there is something wrong here, and they knew it and they're getting rid of it,'?" Wolf said. "That was just not the case."
In June 2007 - less than three months after Composto's death - his widow, Vlazny and Listecki sold the Williams Bay condo for $241,000, some $180,000 more than Listecki originally paid for it, according to public records.
Wolf said the condo was originally put in Listecki's name for convenience's sake but was co-owned by Vlazny and the Compostos. The proceeds from the sale were equally divided among the sellers, she said. Composto's widow, who did not return calls, used her share to pay down the restitution due the Chicago Archdiocese.
Bud Bunce, a spokesman for Vlazny, the Portland archbishop, said he didn't even know that the property had been sold. He said he had no comment on what was done with the money.
"That's a private dealing of his own," Bunce said of his boss.
Last year, Listecki sold his interest in the undeveloped land in the Town of Richmond to Composto's wife for $50,000. The deal was initiated and the documents signed two years earlier, but it was not recorded with the county until September 2008.
O'Malley said officials with the Chicago Archdiocese saw no reason to recommend that Listecki sell his interest in the properties co-owned with Composto. The Chicago church official did say that the archdiocese received full restitution.
"This is a classic situation of a trusted individual betraying their position and their trust," O'Malley said. "Working for the church is a close-knit undertaking, and people become friendly, people become friends. That's what this situation was. He betrayed those friendships."
Daniel Bice can be contacted by phone at (414) 224-2135 or by e-mail at dbice@journalsentinel.com.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.