Bad Priests

DELRAY BEACH — Two former pastors of St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church have been accused of misappropriating $8.6 million from the church during the past 42 years — spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on real estate, travel, gambling and female companions.

Detectives called former priests John Skehan and Francis Guinan "professional money launderers" who repeatedly skimmed money from collection plates, stashing the cash in "secret slush funds."

Skehan is alleged to have put nearly $1.6 million in four bank accounts in cash, donation checks written by congregates, donated stock sales from the building fund and bequeathed money. Guinan allegedly continued putting cash in the bank accounts when he succeeded Skehan as pastor in 2003, taking an estimated $400,000.

Delray Beach Detective Thomas Whatley was waiting for Skehan on Wednesday night at Palm Beach International Airport as he returned from Ireland, where he owns a cottage and pub and where he vacations during the summer.

Skehan, 79, was remorseful during his interview with detectives early Thursday, admitting to some of the misappropriations while trying to justify some of the good he had done over four decades at the church, Whatley said.

He was charged with grand theft over $100,000, a first-degree felony. He is being held in lieu of $400,000 bond in the Palm Beach County Jail.

Guinan, meanwhile, is on a cruise in Australia.

The 63-year-old Port St. Lucie resident called investigators Thursday and said he knew there was a warrant for his arrest.

"These guys lived the life they told everyone else not to live — and they lived it on everyone else's dime," police spokesman Jeff Messer said. "And one of the seven deadly sins is greed."

The news stunned the 4,000-member parish, which is attended by some of the most prominent people in the city's business and political circles.

Skehan has "done so much for the church," said Dr. Joy Rohrer, a Delray Beach dentist who was married by Skehan 21 years ago. "He's looked at as an idol. He's done tremendous things for the church and the school. Everybody who knows him just loves him."

At Thursday's 5 p.m. Mass, a priest sent by the Diocese of Palm Beach read a statement issued by Bishop Gerald Barbarito. His voice cracked as he said he was too emotionally charged to say anything more.

During the Mass, a church priest said, "We are perplexed, some of us by things we hear, some of us by things we see. This teaches us that all is vanity."

Earlier Thursday, Barbarito said the diocese had cooperated with authorities during the investigation. Barbarito also said he authorized an investigation into the finances at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Palm Beach Gardens, where Guinan served until he was transferred to St. Vincent's.

Guinan and Skehan are on administrative leave and cannot act as priests until the criminal investigation is completed, Barbarito said.

Guinan resigned and retired during the investigation, Barbarito said, adding that he had already started the process to remove Guinan.

Barbarito also said that independent of this matter, he had begun biennial audits of the financial matters of every church, school and mission in the five-county diocese.

Diocese Chief Financial Officer Denis Hamel, who helped police with the investigation, said, "This is truly a sad day for our diocese as we contemplate the possible breach of trust that so many worked so hard to achieve and maintain."

The investigation started more than a year ago when a parishioner sent an anonymous letter to Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer about Guinan's removal from the church and an internal audit being done by the diocese.

"As a longtime parishioner, I am concerned that the information found from this audit will remain a secret within the church, hence no criminal charges will be brought if the suspicions are found to be true," the parishioner wrote in a letter dated April 29, 2005.

Whatley and special agent John Marinello of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement were assigned the case in June 2005.

Whatley interviewed several former St. Vincent church employees, one of whom told him that Guinan had an "intimate" relationship with his former bookkeeper at St. Patrick's Church and gave her nearly $50,000 between March and December 2004.

The money was used in part to pay her American Express bills and her son's tuition at Cardinal Newman High School, according to a police report.

Another employee told Whatley that she and her mother received greeting cards containing $1,500 cash from Skehan after she refused to help the diocese with the investigation. Skehan told her he was proud of her and that the diocese was corrupt, according to the report. He also offered to pay her legal fees "if ever needed."

An accounting firm hired by the diocese to conduct a forensic audit revealed that during Skehan and Guinan's tenures at St. Vincent, more than $8.6 million was misappropriated from the church to "slush funds" controlled by Skehan and Guinan, records show.

Skehan used $134,075 to pay for his alleged lover's expenses, gave $11,688 to family members and used another $268,630 for personal expenses, including car payments, dental work, property taxes, credit card payments and condo association fees, according to the report.

On Wednesday night, detectives searched a safe in Skehan's home on church property at 607 N.E. Eighth Avenue, confiscating about $200,000 in commemorative coins and $39,000 cash. Skehan moved into the home after Guinan left the church in September 2005.

"What you had is one priest who did a lot of good for the church over 40 years... and another priest that came in after retirement who went ballistic with the funds," Whatley said.

Skehan's attorney, Ken Johnson of Palm Beach Gardens, said his client is "presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty" and said he would not "try the case in the media as the Delray Beach Police Department has done."

"I have reviewed the probable cause affidavit, and it looks like the numbers total about $325,000 to my client, and how they came up with $8.6 million is completely not explained at all," Johnson said.

West Palm Beach attorney Michael Salnick, who represents two former St. Vincent employees, said his clients talked to detectives because they observed irregularities in how money was handled.

"They were in a very difficult position, but certainly were not going to fall prey to any manipulation by Father Skehan and Father Guinan," Salnick said. "They were raised in a family where telling the truth and doing the right thing is most important."

This is not the first scandal to shake the Diocese of Palm Beach in recent years. The diocese lost two consecutive bishops in sex scandals. In 1999, Bishop J. Keith Symons left in disgrace after admitting to molesting altar boys earlier in his career.

Symons was replaced by Bishop Anthony O'Connell, who left in 2002 after admitting that he had coaxed a seminary student to lie naked with him in bed during the 1970s.

The diocese also has had its share of financial scandals.

Robert Schattie allegedly embezzled $400,000 from the diocese during the 1990s but the diocese did not press charges and persuaded Schattie to pay back the stolen money gradually.

Ed Ricci, a West Palm Beach attorney and outspoken critic of the diocese's handling of recent scandals, said he wasn't surprised by the theft.

"There's a long history, in my judgment, of them doing an atrocious job of auditing their finances," Ricci said. "There is no transparency in the Catholic Church on how finances are handled."

Voice of the Faithful, a Catholic-run nonprofit in Massachusetts, just launched a campaign for financial accountability in Catholic churches.

Spokesman John Moynihan said misappropriation of funds is nothing new, citing the recent five-year prison sentence of a New Jersey priest who stole more than $2 million from five parishes. "It's been happening for years and they are just now being uncovered," Moynihan said.

St. Vincent's, at 840 George Bush Blvd., is the only Catholic church in eastern Delray Beach. Among its worshipers are Police Chief Larry Schroeder and School Board Chairman Tom Lynch, a former Delray Beach mayor.

Its private school, kindergarten through eighth grade, has a waiting list.

Delray Beach Mayor Jeff Perlman, whose wife is a member of the congregation and whose two stepchildren attend the school, said he fielded numerous calls from residents who were frustrated and disappointed in the well-known former pastors.

"I just can't believe the amount," Perlman said. "Father Skehan has been part of the community for decades. This is going to have big reverberations."

Those reverberations struck even the Delray Beach Police Department. Several officers are members and some of their children attend the school.

"The allegations against them involving this grand theft is sinful," said Amos Rojas, FDLE special agent in charge. "These two individuals really betrayed not only their own church and their parishioners but those people that they were really ordained to help — the ones who can't help themselves."

From PalmBeachPost.com