KANSAS
The Wichita Eagle
BY STAN FINGER AND AMY RENEE LEIKER
The Wichita Eagle
A priest charged Tuesday with stealing nearly $151,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Wichita and two small southeast Kansas churches to finance his gambling habit told the diocese last year that he had misused parish funds.
The Rev. Thomas H. Leland, 48, is accused of one federal count of bank fraud for taking unauthorized reimbursements, salary advances and overpayments and too much money for conducting church services between 2012 and 2014 while he was the parish priest at St. Francis in St. Paul and at St. Ambrose in Erie, according to a charging document filed in U.S. District Court.
Diocesan spokeswoman Amy Pavlacka, in an e-mailed response to questions, said Leland “self-reported” misusing the money in March 2014.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.