PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com
by Jeremy Roebuck, STAFF WRITER @jeremyrroebuck | jroebuck@phillynews.com
The rector of a Delaware County retirement home for Philadelphia Archdiocese priests admitted in federal court Thursday that he embezzled more than a half-million dollars from the residence over nearly nine years.
Wearing his priest collar, Msgr. William A. Dombrow told U.S District Judge Gerald J. Pappert that he siphoned funds from a private account set up to support Villa St. Joseph, the facility in Darby Borough that also houses priests who have been accused of sexual abuse. He pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud.
Much of the money that flowed into that account came from life insurance payouts of priests who had died while residing there or bequests from the estates of parishioners.
Dombrow’s theft was discovered last year after the bank that administered the account flagged several suspicious transactions at Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack, in Chester, and notified the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
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