LAS VEGAS, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- A Las Vegas-area priest was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing about $650,000 from parishioners over nearly a decade to feed a gambling addiction.
On Friday, U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan sentenced Msgr. Kevin McAuliffe, who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the thefts, to three years in prison, the Los Angeles Times reported.
McAuliffe, of the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic church, was also ordered to pay restitution.
Margaret Stanish, McAuliffe's attorney, requested the priest be given probation, citing his lifelong devotion to the church. McAuliffe has also been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and depression, Stanish said, but has been excelling in treatment for his gambling addiction.
However, the judge sided with the prosecutors, who focused on the length and depth of McAuliffe's deception of the church. McAuliffe falsified church financial reports and moved money around the church's various accounts to cover the theft, but left his own personal savings untouched, prosecutors said.
Parishioners asked the court to show mercy, citing the construction of a K-8 school and a community center McAuliffe oversaw at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
"I speak for myself and many from our very large congregation, that we are sorry for what [Father] Kevin has done," parishioner Karen Kinney said in a letter to the court, "but all the good that he has done for all of us over these many years has outweighed the sin of taking the money from our church."
