BishopAccountability.org
	Bookkeeper Details Priest's Spending Spree By Angela Carella and Donna Porstner Stamford Advocate June 18, 2006 http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/local/scn-sa-priest2 jun18,0,5521249.story?coll=stam-news-local-headlines The Darien priest who resigned last month amid allegations that he stole at least $200,000 from church coffers repeatedly refused to show credit card bills to the parish accountant, the church bookkeeper said. The Rev. Michael Jude Fay, then-pastor of St. John's Roman Catholic Church on the Post Road, also made it difficult for the parish finance committee to meet because he was out of town two to three weeks each month, said Bethany D'Erario, the church bookkeeper for five years. According to diocesan policy, the pastor is president of the finance committee and presides over meetings. While frequently absent and resisting the accountant's requests to see the bills, Fay spent church money extravagantly, D'Erario said. According to credit card records obtained by The Advocate, Fay went on shopping sprees at Tiffany's and Cartier, purchased airline tickets for his lover, Clifford Fantini of Philadelphia, and bought ads promoting Fantini's wedding planning business. St. John's is a wealthy parish that collects about $1 million a year in donations. The FBI and the U.S. attorney's office are investigating. D'Erario said the accountant on the parish finance committee, John Culhane, told her several times to get the American Express bills from Fay. "I would ask (Fay) and he would say, 'I'll give you what you need,' " D'Erario said. "But all he would give me is the pay stub that you mail back with the total on it." D'Erario said Culhane began to put pressure on her last summer to get the American Express bills from Fay. In the fall, Culhane asked Fay for the bills himself, and Fay became enraged, she said. Fay "came into my office and he was shouting, 'He'll never get the Amex. It's none of his business what I spend the money on,' " D'Erario said.E Former church secretary Ellen Patafio said Fay did not like being asked about credit card bills. "He'd say 'yeah, yeah, sure,' and walk out," said Patafio, who quit in February. "He did it on more than one occasion in my presence. He'd say no one should be asking him about what he was doing." Patafio said she wondered why the finance committee did not question Fay's spending. "The purpose of the finance board is to provide the checks and balances," she said. "But no one ever seemed to come down on him for his raging spending." Culhane has not returned phone calls requesting comment; neither have the other members of the finance committee -- Andrew Aoyama, William Besgen and Robert Masi. D'Erario said the finance committee was stymied because Fay spent little time at the parish.E "We would try to get the information from (Fay), but we would hit a rock wall," D'Erario said. "And then he was off and traveling again." Credit card records show that Fay spent thousands of dollars each month on limousine rides, Amtrak tickets and airfare to travel back and forth to New York City, Philadelphia and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., buying tickets for Fantini. Fay also charged $452 on the parish credit card for an airline ticket for the Rev. Timothy Klunk, pastor of Our Lady of Victory Parish in Baltimore, to fly to Fort Lauderdale, where Fay and Fantini own a home together. Klunk did not return a phone call seeking comment. Many of the items Fay bought with the parish's American Express card were purchased in Philadelphia, where Fantini owns a condominium. Fay's purchases include an ad for Fantini's wedding planning business in "Philadelphia Style" magazine. Church credit card bills show $1,600 was paid in the fall for advertising in the magazine. Fay charged purchases at Tiffany's, Cartier and Hermes. He had tabs from upscale restaurants such as Bookbinder's in Philadelphia, Manhattan Grille in New York City, Roger Sherman Inn in New Canaan, Homestead Inn in Greenwich and the Willett House in Port Chester, N.Y. He spent hundreds of dollars a month at liquor stores, records show.E Fay made one of his biggest purchases in May 2005, buying $23,329 in Ethan Allen furniture.E Exactly how much Fay spent is unknown.E D'Erario and the Rev. Michael Madden, the parochial vicar at St. John's, hired a private investigator to examine church finances, it was revealed last month. After a two-week review, the investigator, Vito Colucci of Stamford, said he found evidence that Fay stole at least $200,000 in parish funds, much of it used to wine and dine Fantini. The total likely is several times more than that because his investigation went back only two years, Colucci has said. Fay was pastor of St. John's for 15 years. Fay resigned as pastor May 17 under pressure from Bishop William Lori. Fay's whereabouts are not known. The bishop has said he learned in the fall of financial problems at the church but thought it was mismanagement. Allegations of theft did not arise until spring, Lori has said. The Bridgeport Diocese has hired an auditor to review parish records. Colucci said he's surprised diocesan officials did not stop Fay from using church credit cards in the fall, when they said suspicions arose. "You don't allow somebody to spend tens of thousands of dollars while you're investigating," Colucci said. "You put a stop to it." During a single week in November, for example, Fay spent $2,800 at Cartier in New York, $2,300 at the Polo store in Philadelphia, $1,400 on designer men's wear at the Ermenegildo Zegna Boutique in New York, $1,200 at the Tumi luggage store on Madison Avenue, and $473 on tickets to the Broadway production of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," according to credit card records. Fay used two church credit cards, and bills on one typically ranged from $8,000 to $12,000 a month, D'Erario said. By comparison, Madden's bills typically totaled $1,500 to $2,000 a month, she said. Those included meals for Madden and another priest living at the rectory, the Rev. Bill Platt, because the rectory does not have a cook. D'Erario said that, on April 28, she and Madden took a box full of St. John's financial records and met with Norm Walker, chief financial officer of the diocese, and a member of Walker's staff, Amy Hermanns. "They asked us questions and we answered all of them. Walker seemed very concerned," D'Erario said. "I walked out and said to myself, 'Finally.' We felt that they were going to do something about the problem." In early May, Lori summoned Fay to Bridgeport, D'Erario said. Fay had to fly in from Fort Lauderdale, she said. "He flew into New York on May 8, a Monday, and stayed there that evening. He went to the meeting with Lori on the ninth," she said. "That same day, May 9, he flew right back to Florida. When he left Bridgeport, he still had his job, he still lived in the rectory, he was still pastor of the church."E The next day, May 10, she and Madden took copies of the same documents to Colucci. Diocesan officials seemed concerned when she and Madden met with them, D'Erario said, but that appeared to have changed after Fay's May 9 meeting with Walker, Lori and Monsignor Peter Cullen, vicar general of the diocese. "After that meeting, they seemed to do a 180," she said. Asked for comment Friday, the bishop's spokesman, Joseph McAleer, issued a statement. "Immediately following the April 28 meeting, the Diocese of Bridgeport acted to safeguard parish funds and commence an internal review of the allegations raised by Ms. D'Erario, the parish business manager," the statement read. "For her to suggest otherwise is inaccurate and false. All the steps undertaken by the diocese will be demonstrated in the written report provided by Deloitte Financial Services. As we have pledged, the written report will be made available to members of St. John Parish. We are confident that the report will show, among other things, that the diocese responded promptly and thoroughly." Diocesan officials met with nearly 200 angry parishioners after the scandal broke last month. Parishioners asked Lori how he could leave Fay in charge of church finances after red flags were raised.E "We do not ask a pastor to step aside when we audit his parish," Lori told the combative crowd. "When we began, we had no reason to believe there was wrongdoing. We thought, perhaps, there was mismanagement." Parishioners pressed him to be specific about what he knew and when, but Lori said they would have to wait until the diocese investigation is complete. The diocese hired Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP to conduct an independent audit. Walker, chief financial officer for the diocese, told parishioners at a May 21 Mass at St. John's that suspicions surfaced last year when officials noticed that food and travel expenses increased by as much as 150 percent. The parish finance committee met in October after noticing delinquent payments to employee benefit plans, Walker has said, and the diocese later learned that a small loan with People's Bank was 18 months overdue. After Fay resigned, Lori appointed Madden to be acting administrator. After Madden revealed at a Mass on May 23 that he helped hire the private eye, Lori removed Madden as acting administrator. Angry parishioners protested, and Lori said Madden may remain as parochial vicar but must take time off for "rest and reflection." It's unclear when that period begins. Two weeks ago, Lori named the Rev. Frank McGrath pastor of the parish of 1,600 families. As of last week, D'Erario still had her job at St. John's.
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