National Catholic Reporter

June 14, 1996

page 8

PRIEST TO REPAY EMBEZZLED MONEY

Fr. Martin Greenlaw of San Francisco has agreed to repay $208,000 he embezzled from church funds in the San Francisco archdiocese.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Jack Berman sentenced the priest May 23 to one year of house arrest and a $5,000 fine on criminal charges of embezzlement.

In the civil settlement, Greenlaw agreed to repay money embezzled from St. Robert Parish in San Bruno, Calif., St. Paul Parish in San Francisco and the San Francisco archdiocesan Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

Greenlaw retired from active ministry for health reasons, at age 51, in August 1994.

The San Francisco district attorney's office is still investigating allegations that Greenlaw's predecessor at the Society for the Propagation of the Faith office, Msgr. Patrick O'Shea, may also have embezzled funds from that Office.

O'Shea has been on administrative leave since March 1994, when the criminal investigation was opened. Two months later, several men accused him of having sexually molested them years earlier when they were children.

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