"Playboy" Priest Arrested – but No Sign of Money or Woman

By Matthew Day
The Telegraph
October 22, 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/9625899/Playboy-priest-arrested-but-no-sign-of-money-or-woman.html

The 34-year-old clergyman has been charged with abuse of office and had his passport confiscated

Father Sime Nimac was arrested in a Zagreb flat after disappearing from his parish near the coastal town of Split with a huge amount of cash he had got from selling a piece of Church land without the permission of his diocese.

Described by his Franciscan order as a man with "insatiable egotism", the 34-year-old clergyman has been charged with abuse of office and had his passport confiscated to prevent him fleeing the country.

Croatian media has speculated that Father Nimac may have used the money from the land sale, which was concluded five months ago, to fuel a lavish lifestyle that included fine clothes, cars, a yacht called "Lucky Me" and the attentions of a married woman.

Despite his arrest he has so far refused to divulge where the money is, or what has happened to it, and police searches of his home and the Zagreb apartment where he was arrested have drawn a blank.

Father Nimac has admitted to selling the land and keeping the money, according to Croatian magazine Index, but he has rejected allegations of theft. He will, according to the magazine, reveal the location of the money when he conducts his own defence.

Gordana Friscic, a friend of the fugitive priest who put him up when he came to the Croatian capital, said Father Nimac intended to meet senior figures of the Catholic Church to explain his actions. In an interview for the paper Vecernji List, Mrs Friscic contradicted stories of a playboy priest imbibed with a taste for opulence and women.