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	Corsican Priest Who Stole 2 Million Euros from Church Is Freed CNN January 27, 2011 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/01/27/embezzling.priest/ Paris (CNN) -- A French Catholic priest who prosecutors said embezzled 2 million euros and led a wild life including "cultural pilgrimages" to Las Vegas has had his jail term reduced by an appeals court. Father Antoine Videau has completed his prison sentence after his jail term was reduced on Wednesday, the prosecutor's office at the appeals court in Bastia, Corsica, said Thursday. Videau, 64, a parish priest in Calacuccia, Corsica, spent the last eight months in prison after he was convicted in June last year of fraud and of embezzling 2 million euros from the church over the course of 20 years by collecting rent from church property and stealing donations. He will not be returning to prison after the appeals court in Bastia reduced his prison sentence from two years to eight months in jail, prosecutors said. Videau will still have to pay 1.3 million euros in damages to the Diocese of Ajaccio. The priest must also pay a fine of 10,000 euros and 250,000 euros in damages to the family of Archbishop Luigi Antonio Arrighi of Casanova for abuse of funds in the case of the senior churchman's inheritance. Videau had 28 bank accounts in Corsica and in the French Riviera, authorities said. Evidence showed he also used church funds to finance "cultural pilgrimages" to Las Vegas, Nevada and other trips abroad. The accountant for the Corsica diocese, Bruno Servas, 56, was also handed a reduced sentence of six months in prison by the appeals court.
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