ILLINOIS/WISCONSIN
Chicago Tribune
John Kass
If you stole $100,000 from a church, a reasonable person would expect that you’d get some jail time for your crimes.
If a poor kid was charged with stealing a fraction of that much cash from a sandwich shop, chances are that jail would be waiting.
But a Wisconsin priest stealing from a church trust, a priest with a fondness for luxury goods and fine restaurants, a priest with a powerful ally in the Chicago Greek Orthodox church hierarchy?
Well, that’s a different story, because that’s no poor kid. That’s a holy man with the robes to prove it.
And in this one, the priest walks and doesn’t serve a day in jail.
It is the case of the Rev. James Dokos, the Greek Orthodox priest who pleaded guilty this week in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to a felony for embezzling more than $100,000 from the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee.
He paid the money back as restitution, and if he behaves himself and spends 40 hours doing community service, it’ll all be dropped down to a misdemeanor, authorities said.
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