NORTHBOROUGH (MA)
MetroWest Daily News
By Brad Petrishen/Daily News staff
The MetroWest Daily News
Posted Oct 14, 2013
NORTHBOROUGH —
St. Bernadette Parish pastor Stephen M. Gemme has resigned, the Worcester Diocese said, after allegedly embezzling more than $230,000 over four years to feed a gambling addiction.
“This is very distressing news that I share with you today,” Worcester Bishop Robert J. McManus wrote in a letter posted to the parish website. “It is tragic.”
Gemme, 43, stole hundreds of thousands from both the church and the school. McManus wrote, and is currently being investigated by the district attorney.
McManus said he began an inquiry into the church’s finances in July after an Advisory Board member drew his attention to expenditures in a “single account” in the school budget.
McManus said Gemme “acknowledged a gambling problem” to him in a meeting the next day, at which point McManus revoked his authority to sign checks and placed him on medical leave.
McManus said he just recently received the results of an audit that showed that Gemme, over a period of the last four years, used more than $110,000 of school money and $120,000 of parish money “for personal expenditures unrelated to the parish or school.
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