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  "Chorister Hired Escorts for Papal Attendant"

Cape Argus
March 5, 2010

http://www.capeargus.co.za/?fSectionId=3571&fArticleId=nw20100305191842454C305836

Rome - A singer in the Vatican choir had sex with one of the pope's gentlemen-in-waiting and procured male escorts on his behalf, the Italian weekly Panorama reported on Friday.

Telephone intercepts collected as part of an extensive corruption probe into Angelo Balducci showed that 40-year-old Nigerian Chinedu Thomas Ehiem would find men on the "Pianeta Escort" (Planet Escort) website and set up encounters between them and Balducci in his apartment in Rome, the weekly said.

In an interview with Panorama, Ehiem said that he had sex with Balducci "for five or six months" because of financial problems.

After a lengthy period without making contact, Balducci then got back in touch with Ehiem, asking him to organise encounters for him via the Internet.

"He asked and I executed. He would give me 50 or 100 euros, never more than 1 000 or 1 500 euros a year," said Ehiem, adding that for Balducci "a 26-, 27-year-old man was too young. He preferred meeting mature people - 40 or older."

The last meeting between Balducci and Ehiem took place in January when Ehiem said he organised an encounter with "a dark-haired Hungarian in his forties."

Balducci is part of the Gentlemen of His Holiness, a group that helps the pope greet dignitaries visiting the Vatican.

He was arrested on February 10 and then removed from his position in the Vatican fraternity.

Ehiem was kicked out of the Vatican choir on Wednesday.

The Catholic Church is currently enmeshed in a scandal over alleged sexual abuse of members of a boy choir formerly headed by Pope Benedict XVI's brother Georg, now 86, in the southern German city of Regensburg.

 
 

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