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	Ex-waterbury, Conn., Priest Ordered Held in $1.3m Theft NECN July 3, 2010 http://www.necn.com/07/06/10/Ex-Waterbury-Conn-priest-ordered-held-in/landing.html?blockID=266795&feedID=4215 [with video] Handcuffed and no longer wearing a clerical collar, 64-year-old Kevin Gray appeared in Waterbury, Conn., Superior Court Tuesday for allegedly stealing $1.3 million to finance a lifestyle of high-end restaurants, male escorts, clothes and hotels. HIs public defender cited Gray's clean record in asking that the former pastor be released on a promise to appear. But the judge sided with the prosecution. So far nobody has stepped up to pay Gray's $750,000 bond, but he attracted a group of supporters to the courthouse. That's a tribute, archdiocese spokesman Monsignor John McCarthy said, to Gray's popularity. Gray, former pastor at Sacred Heart/Sagrado Corazon Parish in Waterbury, was accused of stealing $1.3 million over seven years from the church, police said. "Up until this investigation he had an excellent reputation," police Capt. Christopher Corbett said. "The life he was leading in New York City was much different than the life he was leading in Waterbury as a priest. He's certainly an example of someone who was leading a double life." The archdiocese examined Sacred Heart's books this spring and went to the authorities with their disturbing discoveries. Gray told church officials and others that he had cancer, but police found no evidence of that, Corbett said. Saying he was undergoing treatments in New York may have been an excuse to explain his absence from the parish, he said. Gray, 64, used the money to stay at such hotels as the Waldorf-Astoria and New York Palace and on expensive clothing labels including Armani, Saks 5th Avenue and Brooks Brothers, police said. He dined at Tavern on the Green and Arturo's restaurants in New York, Union League Cafe in New Haven and Abe & Louie's Restaurant in Boston. Police said Gray told them he grew to hate being a priest and was upset with the archdiocese, believing he received the worst church assignments. He said he made checks payable to himself in excess of his salary over the years and admitted to having a secret phone deal in which an antenna was placed in the church steeple to generate cash. "We are deeply saddened by the events which have recently had such a profound affect on Sacred Heart/Sagrado Corazon parish," the Archdiocese of Hartford said in a statement. * Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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