A homage inwards NE has been wrestling with the oppugn of wherefore a Catholic minister would slip parish money, rob an sickly paedophile priest, and commit it all to a homeless piece to blow in casinos.

The Rev. Michael Gutgsell is the former Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Omaha. He has admitted embezzling around $100,000 o'er octad years from St. Joseph parish inwards Springfield. And he took $180,000 from a retired non-Christian priest below his care, Rev. Lowell Thomas Richling, who suffered from dementia.

In 2020, the archdiocese announced an investigation into Richling had “led to the substantiation of multiple instances of sexual misconduct with minors.”

Gutgsell, 73, transferred all the money to Michael Barrett, a adult male living on the streets of Omaha. He added $250,000 of his possess money to this, exhausting his personal accounts, living savings, insurance, and retirement business relationship inwards the process.

$1M Gambled

Barrett gambled off $700,000, all donated past his benefactor, Gutsgell. It’s non crystallise from tribunal documents, viewed by Casino.org, where the remaining $170,000 came from.

If you include some of Barrett’s winnings, and then he missed a total of $1 gazillion at casinos inward Council Bluffs, Iowa, the courtyard heard last week.

Prosecutors suggested Gutsgell was being extorted past Barrett, an assertion the churchman denies. He says it was charity.

Meanwhile, Gutsgell’s defence force lawyers argued their client was the victim of a con man. But prosecutors asked wherefore Gutsgell would steal to help just unity homeless person individual when he could have got directed the money into a stateless charity to help many more.

“It appeared to us that it was an extortion case,” leading investigator on the vitrine Bill Mulligan testified Wednesday, as reported by Norfolk Daily News. “We asked him numerous times if on that point was any other understanding he gave this adult male $700,000. Gutgsell stated no, in that location was no conclude he did other than him existence a homeless person. He said it wasn’t extortion.”

Second Priest Extorted

Gutgsell has admitted siphoning the money from Richling by committal to writing checks to himself or filling come out cash-withdrawal slips patch he had powerfulness of attorney for the retired priest, who was inwards a nursing rest home at the time.

Richling died inwards 2019, aged 90, and Gutgsell was assigned to supervise the judicature of his estate.

Barrett has been accused of extorting another priest, Rev. James I Dawson, for $185, according to the Norfolk Daily News. Barrett visited Dawson at another breast feeding nursing home inward President Lincoln before the latter’s death in 2020. Gutsgell allegedly swarm Barrett to this meeting.

Barrett’s whereabouts are unknown, according to courtyard filings.

Douglas County Judge Marcena Hendrix ordered Gutgsell to follow tried inward a federal royal court on ii felony charges, theft and clapperclaw of a vulnerable adult.