Monsignor Meth Kevin Wallin: the Kinky Priest Who Sold Meth

By Michael Daly
The Daily Beast
January 22, 2013

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/22/monsignor-meth-kevin-wallin-the-kinky-priest-who-sold-meth.html

St. Augustine Cathedral, Bridgeport, Conn. (Lukascb via Wikipedia)

Sacred Heart University/Diocese of Bridgeport (inset)

Amid reports of cross-dressing and having sex in the rectory, “Monsignor Meth,” was nabbed on charges that he used an adult novelty shop to launder a transcontinental drug enterprise. Michael Daly reports.

Sex toys, ruby red slippers, drug paraphernalia, and a Roman collar!

Those all were to be elements of The Land of Oz & Dorothy’s Place, a combination adult novelty shop that Monsignor Kevin Wallin apparently planned to take over and move to a new location after he was suspended from his Bridgeport, Conn., parish amid reports of him cross-dressing and having sex in the rectory.

Add methamphetamine to the list, according to the government, which alleges that the 61-year-old cleric now dubbed “Monsignor Meth” used the store to launder proceeds from a transcontinental drug enterprise.

That charge is in a criminal complaint federal prosecutors filed after Wallin was arrested on Jan. 3. He had been just hours from departing on a 12-day trip London, imparting to his latest flock a new sense of needing a priest.

“Oh no 12 days what am I going to do. No supplys lol,” a customer had texted Wallin in a message intercepted by the government.

At St. Augustine’s Cathedral, where Wallin had been pastor until last year, news of his arrest must have seemed like an episode of Breaking Worse.

Diocesan officials had been shocked enough by the reports of cross-dressing and of visitors of similar inclination as well the discovery of what were described as “unusual sex toys” in Wallin’s residence. Now there were allegations that Wallin owned a store that sold such toys along with XXX videos. Even worse, he was charged not just with using drugs, but also with selling them, and on such a scale he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

And this was not just any priest in any archdiocese. Wallin had been the longtime personal assistant and closest confidant to Edward Egan when he was bishop in Bridgeport, the two of them often going to see Broadway shows in New York.  Egan had continued the archdiocese’s tradition of shuffling priests accused of sex crimes against children and of discounting the pain of the victimized. He reviewed the file of one priest named Laurence Brett, whose many young victims included 10-year-old who had been violated by being shown a crucifix and told that if he did certain exercises he could have abs like Christ.

“All things considered, he makes a good impression,” Egan reportedly said after speaking with Brett.

After Egan became Cardinal in New York in 2000, he issued what seemed to be an apology for the archdiocese of Bridgeport’s failure to act against the abuse. He remained so unpopular that he became the first cardinal in New York history not to remain until he died in office. He announced from his retirement that he had not really apologized after all.

“I did say if we did anything wrong, I’m sorry, but I don’t think we did anything wrong,” Egan said last February.

Egan’s oil portrait still hung on the very rectory where his Broadway buddy Wallin was said to be having cross-dressing sex.

“Some things were reported that may have raised questions about what his lifestyle was,” a diocesan spokesman later told the Hartford Courant. “There was some concern about visitors to the rectory and some suspicion that he might be involved in behavior contrary to that expected of a priest.”

Wallin was finally placed on sabbatical in July 2011. He was suspended after he failed to address what were only described as “personal and health issues.”

According to an affidavit submitted by DEA Special Agent Jay Salvatore that reads like a whole season of Breaking Worse, Wallin’s troubles with the law began year after he departed St. Augustine Cathedral.

As Salvatore recounts it, the DEA Office in New Haven was notified by its counterpart New York in July 2012 that “an unidentified Connecticut-based narcotics trafficker was involved in the distribution of ounce quantities of crystal methamphetamine the tri-state area.”

In September, the York office provided more specific information. A “confidential source,” identified in court papers only as CS-1, had told investigators that the dealer in question was “a Catholic priest named Kevin Wallin.”