ILLINOIS/WISCONSIN
Chicago Tribune
By Alexandra Chachkevitch and Lisa Black, Chicago Tribune reporters
7:15 a.m. CDT, October 29, 2013
Even after retiring to Florida, Ervin and Margaret Franczak stayed in regular contact with their longtime priest back in Milwaukee.
Especially after Ervin died in 2001, the Rev. James Dokos looked after Margaret, visiting her on occasion and sending poinsettias at Christmas, friends said. Records show she even updated her will to leave Dokos her condo and her car — part of a charitable trust the couple established whose value topped more than $1.2 million.
Documents obtained by the Tribune show that Dokos, now pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Glenview, wrote checks totaling tens of thousands of dollars from that trust fund to himself and used the fund to pay at least $32,000 in credit card bills. As sole trustee of the fund, Dokos also gave several thousand dollars from the trust to a high-ranking official in the Greek Orthodox archdiocese in Chicago, the documents show.
Now authorities in Milwaukee are conducting an investigation into how Dokos distributed the money from the Franczaks’ fund and whether he paid himself more than the trust stipulated.
Officials at the Metropolis of Chicago, the Greek Orthodox archdiocese that oversees dozens of parishes in the Midwest, have said their “initial conclusion” was that the trust fund money was spent in accordance with Margaret Franczak’s will and wishes and with the knowledge of the parish council at Milwaukee’s Annunciation Church, which received the bulk of the money from the trust.
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