TAMPA (fl)
WTSP
[with video]
Charles Billi
Tampa — He’s a priest who looks like Jolly old St. Nick, but cops said his actions were anything but holy.
Charles Leigh is the head of Apostolic Catholic Church in Tampa, but Tuesday night, he was in custody- busted, cops say, for trading bogus community service hours for “intimate” hugs.
“He was a little too like- gripping too hard and then he was smelling my neck, and I was like ‘no way dude,” said one young woman who performed community service at the church. “That’s why I didn’t come back because I thought he was one of those pervs, man.”
Tampa cops said they were tipped off back in June that Leigh was falsifying court probation paperwork in exchange for a quick feel, so on two separate occasions, they sent in an undercover female officer to pose as a woman on probation in need of community service hours.
“He wrote down on the official department of corrections form that she did 17 hours, which she never did, in exchange for four hugs,” said Tampa Police Cpl. Felitia Pecora.
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