Former church administrator jailed for stealing nearly $400,000 from parish

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This article was published 06/10/2017 (2980 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A former Winnipeg church administrator has been sentenced to 22 months in jail for defrauding parishioners out of almost $400,000.

With a full courtroom of supporters watching, 41-year-old Leo McCaughan was taken into custody Friday after provincial court Judge Fred Sandhu handed down the jail sentence, which is to be followed by two years of probation.

The judge rejected defence lawyer Saul Simmonds’ argument “exceptional circumstances” — including alleged sexual exploitation, a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder and a painful personal history — should keep McCaughan out of jail.

McCaughan pleaded guilty to fraud over $5,000 for writing himself more than 100 cheques, stealing from the church collection, taking donations meant to go to charity or for building maintenance and repairs, and covering up the theft with falsified accounting records for nearly five years from 2009 to 2014 — during his time as administrator for St. Bernadette Roman Catholic Parish on Cottonwood Road.

But since his arrest in January 2016, McCaughan has liquidated his assets — including the sale of his house — to repay the $370,000 he stole. He’s been in counselling — which the church is paying for — and he’s apologized.

The judge agreed, after reviewing more than 20 glowing letters of support (including from McCaughan’s employers and Archbishop of St. Boniface Albert LeGatt) McCaughan has shown genuine remorse and has been embraced by his “surrogate family” in the church.

“I don’t know what more he could do,” Sandhu said.

Sandhu said he considered it all — and ultimately decided to sentence McCaughan to less than two years in jail even though the usual range of penalties for a first-time offender who commits this type of fraud is two to three years in prison.

Crown attorney Terry McComb had recommended a 2 1/2-year sentence.

While the church had been supportive of restorative justice and worked with McCaughan on his rehabilitation, it accepts the judge’s decision as an appropriate one, said Archdiocese of St. Boniface spokesman Richard Frechette, who was present as the judge spent an hour detailing his reasoning Friday.

“There’s no doubt that what Mr. McCaughan did… he committed a lot of harm to a lot of people,” he said. “When you hear all of the work that’s gone into that sentence and what the judge has done, I think that our only reaction could be that it’s a fair and appropriate response to the crime that’s been committed.”

For McCaughan and the 1,000 members of St. Bernadette Parish, “We have to look past vengeance and go towards forgiveness,” Frechette said.

While McCaughan took responsibility for the fraud, he made allegations against a former parish priest who wasn’t named in court. McCaughan’s defence team urged the judge to consider the role sexual exploitation and manipulation may have played in McCaughan’s decision to start stealing from the church, suggesting a sexual encounter with the priest when McCaughan was 26 may have prompted the financial crimes.

Sandhu said he was not convinced a 26-year-old man could be sexually exploited and groomed the way a child might be, and he said there was no evidence of the connection between those sexual advances, which McCaughan disclosed to his psychologist, and the fraudulent activity.

“The nexus does not exist, I would say, scientifically or logically,” Sandhu said, noting the allegations against the priest “are not proven facts.”

The archdiocese is investigating the former pastor at St. Bernadette, Fr. Fred Olds, for impropriety. He’s been suspended and can no longer work in the ministry pending the outcome of the investigation.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay