Monsignor Joseph McLoone, a Catholic priest in Pennsylvania, has been arrested and charged with 18 counts including felony theft for stealing $98,000 from his church parishioners to pay his Grindr hookups, and buy a beach house.
PhillyMag reports: “Investigators claim that McLoone opened a secret checking account in 2011 and diverted parishioner donations into that account and misappropriated other church funds undetected for the next seven years. According to prosecutors, McLoone used the funds to pay for dinners, travel, and a beach home in Ocean City, New Jersey. Investigators say that when he was confronted by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia about the money, he also admitted to paying for “personal relationships” with other men with the church funds. According to the police complaint filed in court, McLoone sent thousands of dollars to men he met on the social networking app Grindr using online payment methods such as Square and J-Pay.”
PennLive reports: ‘On Nov. 2 of that year – his first All Souls Day holiday there — McLoone opened an account with TD Bank called the “St. Joseph Activity Account.” Over the next six years, he diverted donation checks written to the parish to that account. He also used the account to take the entirety of the All Soul's collections each year and convert checks written to St. Joseph's into checks made out to himself and others within the parish. McLoone created this account to hide the funds from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and ensure no one saw that he was using the funds for his personal lifestyle.'
