Posted on 04/12/2008 1:01:55 PM PDT by Choose Ye This Day
BELVIDERE, N.J. - The former pastor of a Washington Borough church has pleaded guilty to running a church raffle scam.
The Rev. Robert Ascolese pleaded guilty Friday to three counts of theft, even as he maintained that he never knew he was doing anything wrong running a church raffle with fake "winners."
The $100-a-ticket raffles at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church were from 2001 to 2005, and were to raise $200,000 a year for the church, with an annual $200,000 going to winners.
But nearly $1 million of what was supposed to be winnings were funneled back into the struggling church and elementary school.
Some in the community and even the parish have defended [snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
For five years, parishioners never figured out that nobody knew the "winners"?
How does this happen?
Our church has a parish council with a layperson elected as the financial advisor.
Even if a priest tried to swindle our church, it would seem the council would be able to pick up on it pretty quick.
Also...at our Church - it is the council, or sub-groups (altar society, pro-life, rural ministry, etc...) that hold fundraisers - not the priests.
Yes, it sounds fishy that the finances were only directed by one person.
I’m the finance clerk in my church, but I cannot ever handle donations alone. Every dollar that comes in or goes out must be handled and acknowledged by at least two people.
At least it doesn’t appear that he personally benefitted from the withheld “winnings”.
I read it that he created fake winners so the prize money would go back into the church and school, not to himself. It was a scam, but he apparently did it with what he felt were good intentions, not to benefit personally.
“he apparently did it with what he felt were good intentions...”
Just what the road to hell is paved with.
What’s the adage? No good deed goes unpunished and no bad deed goes unforgiven ...
I always wondered who the person was who kept yelling “Bingo”!
So if “Some” people are okay with a person committing a crime you do not think you have a right to object?
This priest should be on Obama’s finance committee. Is Pelosi looking for talent?
Sad, he’s my elderly neighbor’s son and a childhood friend of my brother. His family is devastated.
If that is the case, you can go rob a bank on Monday morning and give all your "winnings" to your church.
Then, 4 stories, down is the Baptist preacher that stuck $45,000 of the disaster money in his own pocket. I would guess that the priest that put the money in the church school isnt going to have to worry too much about the sentencing.
As for the priest and the fake raffle, he should be prosecuted as well.
Come to think of it, I always had suspicion about the raffles in the Church when I was a kid. It always seemed like the richest family in the church would win. It must have been fixed.
Man, that’s a stretch, doncha think?
It would depend of what the meaning of “Some” is.
To me it would seem that is some people did not object, then some other people did object and thus there are victims willing to file a complaint.
Church dont have enough cash?Gesh....
This priest stole money from everyone who bought a ticket.
All these “excusists” can stick their excuses where the sun don’t shine. This priest is a thief. It does not matter where he put his stealings, he still stole them.
No, he didn’t benefit personally, but fraud is fraud. Most people enter a raffle thinking that there’s at least a tiny possibility that they might win. They at least think there’s a tiny possibility that *someone* might win.
When only the raffle organizers win, that’s fraud.
I always thought there were laws against financial fraud.
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