CONNECTICUT
Stamford Advocate
Associated Press
Updated 06:40 p.m., Friday, July 20, 2012
NEW HAVEN — A former Greenwich priest should be sent to prison for about a year for obstructing an investigation into his personal use of church money, federal prosecutors said.
Michael Moynihan, who resigned in 2007 as pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Parish, is to be sentenced Monday in New Haven after pleading guilty last year to obstructing a federal investigation. Moynihan wants to be spared prison time, according to prosecutors.
“There is simply no excuse for a religious leader to knowingly lie and provide false documentation when an effort is being made to uncover facts surrounding off-the-book accounts,” prosecutors wrote in court papers Wednesday. “The court should reject the notion that religious leaders or other types of white collar professionals should be sentenced more lightly than the powerless because, for the former, the embarrassment of conviction alone is more devastating than it would be for those who have enjoyed fewer advantages in life.”
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