Ex-priest Gets 5-month Sentence for Forging Letters to Cover Misuse of Church Funds

By Edmund H. Mahony
Hartford Courant
July 23, 2012

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-priest-sentenced-0724-20120723,0,5753338.story

A former parish priest in Greenwich accused of forging letters to cover up his misuse of about $300,000 in church money was sent to prison for five months Monday by Senior U.S. District Judge Ellen Bree Burns in New Haven.

Federal prosecutors said pastor Michael Moynihan forged letters from two parishioners, one of whom was an unidentified judge, in an attempt to deceive FBI agents into believing that he spent the money for church purposes.

Moynihan, 59, who was asked by the church to resign, was employed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport as pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Greenwich from 1993 to 2007.

Prosecutors said Moynihan used church money to pay credit card bills or other personal expenses, according to federal and church authorities. He was charged with obstructing an official proceeding.

The money Moynihan ultimately admitted misusing came from two "off-the-books" parish bank accounts he maintained, authorities said. Between 2002 and 2006, more than $2 million in money contributed by parishioners was placed in the funds, which were maintained off the parish's general ledger in apparent violation of diocese rules.

Approximately $1.8 million from the off-the-books accounts was spent on what the church has determined to be valid expenses, including hundreds of thousands of dollars for the parish grammar school, the Greenwich Catholic School and an affiliated equestrian center and tennis courts.

Brian Wallace, a spokesman for the Diocese of Bridgeport, said that the equestrian center "was something that the parish had wanted, and [parishioners and Moynihan] worked on it together."

A call for information to the grammar school was not immediately returned.

But federal authorities said Moynihan used about $300,000 from the undisclosed accounts to pay his credit card bills.

Questions about Moynihan's use of church money arose during a similar investigation of former Pastor Michael Jude Fay at St. John's Roman Catholic Church in nearby Darien. Fay was sentenced to three years in prison in 2007 after being accused of a lavish spending spree with more than $1 million in parish money.

Among other things, Fay spent $130,000 on limousine rides for himself, and his mother used another $34,000 as the down payment on a Philadelphia condominium.

Federal prosecutors said Moynihan maintained the "off the books" accounts in spite of a 2002 diocese order instructing all parishes to maintain only a single operating bank account and to list the account on its balance sheet. He is accused of opening one of the accounts after the accounting instruction was issued.

In additon to the five-month prison sentence, Moynihan was ordered to submit to two years of supervision upon his release and to pay the church $409,000 to cover expenses it incurred in an internal investigation of theft.

"It is a difficult day when a priest falls," Wallace said, "particularly one who was a pastor actively engaged in the lives of his parishioners. In addition to misappropriation of parish resources, Michael Moynihan also misused the sacred trust placed in him by parishioners and their family members."

Contact: emahony@courant.com