AKRON (OH)
Beacon Journal
By Rick Armon
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published: July 3, 2012
A federal appeals court has overturned the criminal sentence of the Rev. Samuel Ciccolini, the Roman Catholic priest from Akron who pleaded guilty two years ago to banking and tax fraud charges involving his personal finances.
Ciccolini, better known as Father Sam, must be resentenced because federal Judge James Gwin didn’t have the authority to order him to pay $3.5 million in restitution to the Interval Brotherhood Home Foundation, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati announced Tuesday.
Gwin also had sentenced Ciccolini to one day in custody and fined him $350,000. At the time, the judge said he thought it would be more painful for Ciccolini, who had admitted he likes hoarding money, to pay millions than spend time in prison.
The 70-year-old priest had a personal fortune of more than $5.5 million in cash, stocks and bonds at the time of his sentencing. Gwin had questioned how Ciccolini could have accumulated so much money without stealing it.
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