Thursday, December 15, 2016
IRELAND/FLORIDA
Irish Examiner
John Breslin
A Galway-born priest charged with embezzling over $50,000 (€47,000) from an elderly parishioner in Florida was a vocal supporter of one of two jailed Irish clerics accused of defrauding their parish of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Fr Nicholas King, aged 73, is charged with using money belonging to the elderly woman to fund a lifestyle “beyond his means”, according to police in Brevard County near Orlando.
The priest, who officially stood down as pastor of the parish he led for over 20 years just days before his September arrest, was a public supporter of Francis Guinan, one of the two Irish clerics propelled to nationwide and international infamy over their plundering of church coffers to fund gambling trips, rare coin collections, and homes.
Guinan, from Offaly, spent over three years in jail after being found guilty by a jury of stealing some $100,000.
The other, Kilkenny-born John Skehan, aged 81 when sentenced in 2009, served just under a year of a 14-month sentence after pleading guilty to stealing close to $400,000.
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