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  Prominent Priest Who Founded Akron Rehab Center Is in Legal Trouble

By Peter Krouse
The Plain Dealer
July 13, 2010

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/07/pominent_priest_who_founded_re.html

AKRON, Ohio -- A well-known Roman catholic priest who founded a prominent drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Akron is in trouble with the law.

Samuel R. Ciccolini, 66, an associate priest at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Kenmore and executive director of the Interval Brotherhood Home, has been charged with making bank deposits in a way that avoided government reporting requirements and also with filing a false tax return.

Ciccoline deposited $1,038,680 between April and June of 2003 by way of 139 separate cash deposits at branches in the Akron area, federal prosecutors said. They also charged Ciccolini with filing a false tax return for the 2003 tax year, in which he claimed income of $101,064 when it was really $407,062.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Bulford declined to say how Ciccolini obtained the money he deposited, what it was intended for and why the charges against him are only coming to light seven years later.

The deposits were made in amounts less than $10,000 to avoid having a currency transaction report made available to the U.S. Treasury Department, investigators said. Law enforcement agencies scrutinize such reports in search of wrongdoing such as money laundering.

The charges were made by way of an information, which normally means the defendant has an agreement with the government to plead guilty to the charges. Ciccolini's attorney, Peter Cahoon, declined to comment.

Vince Murdocco, chairman of the Interval Brotherhood Home board of trustees, said the charges against Ciccolini are unrelated to the operations of the rehabilitation center or the church where Ciccolini is an associate priest.

Ciccolini founded the Interval Brotherhood Home in 1970. It has 62 beds and is usually filled up, said Edwin Stanford, assistant director for administration and finance at the home.

Both Stanford and Murdocco said they do not expect the center to cut back on its services as a result of Ciccolini's legal trouble. Murdocco said he may even want Ciccolini to stay on as executive director, but first wants to learn more about the situation.

"Right now what I've asked him to do is take vacation until the board can research this," Murdocco said.

 
 

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