Priest, administrator indicted, accused of $700K theft from Troy parish

By Robert Snell
Detroit News
April 23, 2014

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140423/METRO02/304230061/Priest-administrator-indicted-accused-700K-theft-from-Troy-parish

Detroit — A Catholic priest and a parish administrator were indicted and accused of stealing almost $700,000 from St. Thomas More Church in Troy and blowing the cash on a condominium and other expenses.

The five-count indictment, unsealed Wednesday, charged the Rev. Edward Belczak, 69, of Troy and Janice Verschuren, 67, of Bloomfield Hills with stealing the money from the church and Archdiocese of Detroit between 2004 and 2012.

The stolen money allegedly included most of a $350,000 gift to the church from the family of a dead parishioner and cash donated by churchgoers during special Mother’s Day and Father’s Day collections, prosecutors alleged.

The duo tried to hide the alleged crime by creating false documents and submitting them to the Archdiocese, prosecutors allege. The documents under-reported the amount of the parish’s operating receipts.

Belczak and Verschuren face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of charges that include conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.

“He’s presumed innocent and the conclusion is he is innocent,” Belczak’s lawyer Jerome Sabbota said Wednesday. “We haven’t seen any evidence. All we hear are allegations.”

Verschuren‘s lawyer could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

An archdiocese audit highlighted several concerns including $429,000 in “questionable financial transactions and practices.” Among them was $108,000 in unauthorized compensation Belczak directed to himself and compensating a “ghost employee” $240,000.

Belczak, who remains a priest, was paid in the mid-$30,000 range each year, the archdiocese has said.

Belczak, the church’s pastor for more than 30 years, was replaced by the archdiocese during an investigation of alleged misuse of church donations — approximately equal to the condominium purchase price — and moved out of his church-provided lodgings. About the same time, a parish office manager, Janice Verschuren, resigned from her job.

Belczak and Verschuren have not served at the parish in over a year, Archdiocese spokesman Joe Kohn said.

“The archdiocese will continue to cooperate with authorities as this matter moves through the courts,” Kohn said in a statement. “As such, there is nothing more the archdiocese can or will say at this stage in the proceedings.”

Belczak is still celebrating mass at area churches, The News has learned.

He filled in at St. Kenneth Parish in Plymouth in recent weeks.

Archbishop Allen Vigneron has granted permission for Belczak to celebrate mass several times in the past 15 months amid a shortage of priests, Kohn said.

“He is not saying mass weekly anywhere,” Kohn said.

The indictment comes two days after prosecutors filed a forfeiture suit on the $500,000 Florida condo Belczak bought in Wellington, Fla., seven years ago.

Belczak is a well-known and popular Troy priest who has drawn support on social media sites in recent days.

“As stated from the beginning, whether guilty or innocent, let’s continue to pray for someone who has touched our lives in a very spiritual way that justice may be reached and for his health and well-being,” one supporter wrote Monday on a Facebook page.