PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive
By Matt Miller | mmiller@pennlive.com
on November 11, 2014
A Pennsylvania court has refused to overturn a $425,000 restitution order against a former Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to stealing from his own parish to finance a lavish lifestyle.
Richard E. Nachajski, who led the Saint Anthony of Padua parish in Reading for about 15 years, had argued on appeal that he wasn’t given a chance to argue that he actually had stolen far less from his former congregation.
The state Superior Court in a recent ruling turned aside Nachajski’s argument that his original lawyer was ineffective, however, and so concluded that his restitution argument was void.
Berks County Judge Scott D. Keller sentenced Nachajski, now 68, to 2 to 7 years in state prison in September 2012 after the ex-priest pleaded guilty to a theft charge.
Investigators said Nachajski diverted parish money from 1998 to 2008 to his own purposes, including to pay for vacations and finance a time share in Mexico. The theft was uncovered in an audit conducted by the Diocese of Allentown and a probe by the Berks County District Attorney’s Office conducted after Nachajski took a leave of absence from the parish in 2009.
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