As reported by Jennifer O'Brien of the
London Free Press,
March 29, 2016:
Up to eight London families, and more across southern Ontario, are reportedly out of pocket and the priest they trusted is under investigation after hundreds of thousands of dollars went missing.
The priest, Father Amer Saka of St. Joseph’s Chaldean Catholic Church in London, is suspended and being investigated by police, with his bishop saying Saka told him he gambled away more than $500,000 given to him by families who thought he was holding it for refugee relatives under a private sponsorship program.
Seven or eight London families from the small church in the city are among those who trusted Saka to deposit thousands of dollars into a trust fund to be used once the refugees arrived in Canada, said Bishop Emmanuel Shaleta, head of the Toronto-based Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of Canada.
“They deposited it for their loved ones. He was supposed to return it when their relative came.” Shaleta said Monday.
“They did not give this money as a donation for their church. Those people are upset now that money is not there anymore. There are people affected, not only in London, but Toronto, Windsor and Kitchener,” where the priest also worked, he said.
“They trusted him, this money was not for him. It was to be given back to the refugees.”
Instead, the government “has stopped all processing” of refugees wanting to come to London on private sponsorships facilitated by Saka, said one member of the London congregation.
“People are sad. There are people who are working all their life to bring their family here,” said the man, who did not want to be named.
“Some people had no money. They borrowed thousands just to get their family from Syria,” he said, adding many in the congregation have relatives in Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Turkey.
The man said estimates of $500,000 are low and he’d heard more than $800,000 had vanished. He said he knows of one family alone who gave more than $70,000 to the priest for loved ones still overseas.
“Everybody’s talking about it.”
Saka, who was also an administrator of the Mar Ouraha parish in Kitchener, could not be reached by phone or in person for comment Monday.
Shaleta, head of Canada’s Mar Addai Chaldean Eparchy, an Eastern Rite church that represents Catholics from Iraq and surrounding countries ,and which is overseen by the Vatican, said the problem came to light more than a month ago, when he learned the priest was participating in the federal government’s refugee-sponsorship program through the Hamilton Roman Catholic Diocese.
Saka is not a priest for either the Diocese of London or the Diocese of Hamilton.
With police tight-lipped, key questions about the case remain, including:
--Whether money was actually deposited with any church for refugee sponsorship purposes.
--Whether oversight procedures, typically tight involving private refugee sponsorships, were lacking.
--Why someone from one Catholic organization would go to another to help with private refugee sponsorships. A spokesperson for the Hamilton diocese has suggested that might be because Hamilton has a large Chaldean community and because Saka’s Kitchener mission parish is located within the diocese.
Saka had been parish priest at St. Joseph’s for about eight years, the parishioner told The Free Press. He called him a good priest who liked to do things with his flock, including play soccer with the men.
London police confirmed they’re investigating after church officials reported more than $500,000 went missing.
“I can confirm that there is a fraud investigation after we received a complaint from the Catholic church,” said London police Const. Melissa Duncan. “The investigation is ongoing. As with any fraud investigation, it can take some time because there are various components to the investigation.”
Saka’s London parish has a congregation of about 100 families, said Shaleta. They’re among about 38,000 Chaldean Catholics across the country.
Shaleta said he hadn’t known the London priest was taking part in the program to sponsor Iraqi refugees.
“I did not know that. I said to him, ‘I know this program deposits money (for refugees), where did you deposit it?’” said Shaleta.
“I cornered him. I said, ‘I need to know where is this,’” he said. “He confessed.”
The priest told him he’d been gambling, said Shaleta.
“Right away, I removed him from the parish.”
Shaleta said he contacted police, took Saka to Southdown Institute in Holland Landing, Ont., for priests with addiction and mental health issues, took over the congregation for two weeks and has since sent a priest there.
“The congregation has nothing to do with this. They are not involved with this,” he said.
Fewer than 100 people normally attend the tiny Charles Street church in London, but the day the bishop arrived to explain things there were as many as 300, said the parishioner.
Under the federal government’s private sponsorship program, people who want to sponsor refugees must raise money to support the newcomers as they get settled.
About $12,000 must be raised to sponsor one refugee, and $27,000 to sponsor a family.
Faith-based organizations often partner with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to help with the process by holding the money, making the application and essentially vouching for the sponsors. The money is used for rent and expenses during the first year after newcomers arrive.
“The diocese says ‘this is a parishioner, we know them, we trust them,’” explained Shaleta.
He said he doesn’t know what’s happening in the cases of the sponsorships that were being held by the London priest, but the bishop said he’s working to ensure the refugees make it to Canada.
“I will do my best to process those files,” he said. “Of course, as a church we will help as much as we can."
October 23, 2019 update: As reported by Jane Sims of the
London Free Press,
October 22, 2019:
There was no legal way that Rev. Amer Saka wasn’t going to prison for his $1-million fraud.
But, when Ontario Court Justice Allan Maclure sent the 54-year-old Chaldean Catholic priest to prison on Tuesday, he offered Saka some glimmer of hope for his future.
“While Father Saka deserves condemnation for his conduct, in my view he’s also deserving of a degree of forgiveness and hope,” Maclure said in a decision that wrestled with the conduct of “a fundamentally good man” with a wicked gambling addiction.
Saka, who came to Canada from Iraq, pleaded guilty earlier this year for one count of fraud over $5,000 for using trust money that was earmarked to bring Iraqi refugees to Canada to feed a gambling addiction.
So deep was Saka’s gambling urge that at the time he was under investigation for fraud, he was already on the radar of the OPP for his frequent visits to the Point Edward casino where he would gamble large sums of cash.
The Federal Transactions Report Analysis Centre of Canada (FTRAC) also knew of Saka’s large transactions, including using $25,525 in one swoop, and had him on their radar.
Maclure agreed with the defence that the addiction stemmed from undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder that had its roots in the persecution he suffered in his home country. His brother was murdered in 1984 and his mother died in his arms in 2005 after she had been shot.
Saka maintained his faith and helped prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Once in Canada, he offered his services to the Diocese of Hamilton and its refugee sponsorship through his parishes in London and Kitchener, starting in 2011.
It appears all went well until federal quotas for refugees were eliminated in 2013 and the priest was flooded with requests from potential sponsors, many of them with cash on hand that he was to put in trust accounts.
The problems were detected in 2015 when the church’s sponsorship office became aware of irregularities in Saka’s applications.
By the time the dust settled and Saka had confessed to his bishop, the Crown estimated at least $936,497 had been gambled away.
Saka said in a letter to the court he was under the gambling addict’s view that if he played long enough, he could win back his losses for the families and for himself.
In total, 33 families and 109 family members were affected by Saka’s losses.
“For more than three or four years, I have been suffering from my behaviour regarding my compulsion to gamble,” he wrote in the letter that Maclure read during his decision. “I lost not only myself but also many of my loved ones and loyal parishioners. It was never my intention to cause others so much pain.”
Amer Saka’s lawyer Iryna Revutsky exits the London courthouse Tuesday on the day her client, a Chaldean Catholic priest, was sentenced to two years in prison for fraud. (Derek Ruttan/The London Free Press)
He wrote that he misses working as a priest and had devoted his life to helping others. “Priding myself on service to others, I would never have believed that something that started as a pleasant trip with friends to a casino would have become such a nightmare and personal shame,” he wrote.
His hope was to help others find the joy and peace he had discovered in Canada, but he hadn’t come to terms with the trauma in his life. “When I gambled, it took away some of the horror of some of these memories,” he wrote.
“I miss being a priest. I miss helping people. I worry I won’t ever be a priest again,” he wrote.
Maclure said this was “a large scale fraud. It is an egregious breach of trust.” But Maclure also pointed to Saka’s efforts to get counselling and psychological reports about his undiagnosed mental health issues.
There were also letters of support from parishioners, including one who said Saka sold his own car to help him settle in Canada. Maclure noted many witnesses at Saka’s preliminary hearing held no malice against the priest and forgave him.
“These are the true measures of this man” Maclure said.
Maclure agreed with the Crown that a prison sentence was the only possible outcome. He sentenced Saka to two years, the low end of the range suggested by the Crown.
He also agreed the victims “are among the most vulnerable, displaced people coming from a wartorn country.”
“In many of the events, he took advantage of the high regard he held in the community,” the judge said.
But Maclure also agreed the diocese should have monitored the trust accounts more closely. He was “also very much troubled” that gambling authorities knew of Saka’s gambling, “watched and did nothing.”
Maclure noated Saka’s worry he may never be a priest again. “It would be most unfortunate if that happened,” he said.
“I believe Father Saka is fundamentally a very good man who dedicated his life to others, was traumatized in a way that I doubt many of us could ever appreciate.”
Maclure ordered Saka to pay back the money, but with some hesitance. The most Saka ever made as a priest was $22,000 a year and hopes of him paying back close to $1 million is slim. But the law says there must be restitution.
Maclure suggested he give Saka 45 years to pay , but assistant Crown attorney Adam Campbell argued that would “effectively nullify the intent of Parliament.”
Maclure recalculated his decision to 10 years after Saka completes his sentence. At that time Saka can come to court and request more time.
Maclure recommended Saka serve his sentence in a minimum security prison.
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