CANADA
CTV Ottawa
[with video]
Published Thursday, October 16, 2014
There are more allegations of fraud within Ottawa’s Catholic Church.
CTV News has learned the allegations target three men– including an Ottawa lawyer– who sat on the St. Patrick’s Fallowfield Cemetery Committee.
St. Patrick’s Fallowfield Catholic Church is one the most popular parish’s in west-Ottawa.
The troubling allegations date back more than a decade, reported for the first time now only after a CTV investigaton.
According to court documents, The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of the City of Ottawa has launched a lawsuit seeking damages of 736-thousand dollars. The civil lawsuit names three men, Ottawa lawyer Ronald Houlahan, Michael Rooney and Glenn Clarke, all former members of the church’s cemetery committee.
It’s alleged they used “deceitful transactions” to divert $413,970 from the St. Patrick’s Fallowfield Cemetery. The allegations of fraudulent activity date back to 2003 and continued until 2011. A forensic investigation alleges that over those eight years money from the sale of plots had gone missing, honorariums were handed out, and unsupported payments were made through the signing of cheques by all three men. The alleged irregularities only discovered after a review of the cemetery’s finances in 2010.
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