BishopAccountability.org
	A Money Trail to Haiti By Sean Corbett New Haven Advocate February 24, 2010 http://www.newhavenadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=16836 Long before the earthquake, Fairfield University graduate Doug Perlitz was in Haiti working as a missionary. By 2008, he had received close to $3.5 million for his efforts through the Haiti Fund of Project Pierre Toussaint (PPT), an organization he founded in 1997 to help Haitian orphans. Then last September, Perlitz was indicted by a grand jury for sexually abusing at least nine children while in Haiti. The indictment states Perlitz gave street children food, alcohol, money, toys and other gifts for sexual favors. He's now awaiting trial in a Bridgeport jail. Perlitz, a member of the class of 1992, kept close ties with Fairfield U. In 2002, he gave the university's commencement speech and was awarded an honorary degree. Father Paul Carrier, who was then Fairfield's director of Campus Ministry, also served as the chairman of the board of directors for the Haiti Fund. Day Pitney LLP, a law firm working for the university, released the results of an independent probe last week that sought to clarify the ties between Fairfield U, Carrier, Perlitz, the Haiti Fund and PPT. According to the report, Fairfield U contributed at least $51,000 to the Haiti Fund directly. Also, $120,500 was paid (over nine years) to Carrier from Campus Ministry accounts, and the university didn't keep track of where that money went. No money went from the university to the fund after the allegations were made, according to the probe, and neither Carrier nor the university are suspected of any financial wrongdoing, though they could have kept better track of their money. The report also found that a portion of $604,000 in individual contributions to the Haiti Fund was collected inside Fairfield's Egan Chapel during mass by Carrier between 1997 and 2008. In 2006, Carrier was transferred from his job at Fairfield U by the Jesuit Provincial for New England, though this also "predated the university's knowledge of the allegations against Perlitz," according to the report and was incidental to it. In conclusion, it seems up to $775,500 could have gone from university accounts and donations made through their institutions to PPT between 1997 and 2008. That's about 22 percent of the money raised by the Haiti Fund for PPT. Nobody we spoke with at Fairfield University could comment, as they are currently under subpoena.
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