Friar with White-Plains-based order sentenced to prison for bilking $500K for fake causes

A Catholic friar with a White Plains-based order was sentenced to five years in federal prison for a nearly decade-long scheme in which he obtained more than $500,000 in donations by claiming to be a doctor raising funds for medical needs in Lebanon.

Pawel Bielecki used multiple aliases, including Paul HRH Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and falsely claimed he was various types of surgeons with several doctorates. His 350 victims bought the lies he told at church Masses, on podcasts and at crowdfunding websites about running medical clinics in Lebanon that needed supplies, equipment and even an ambulance. They fed him donations that he used instead on gym memberships, high-end dining, trips to the Hamptons and plastic surgery.

Bielecki lived and worked in a Manhattan friary that was part of the Province of St. Mary of the Capuchin Order, based in White Plains. He joined in the mid-1990s and took a vow of poverty prohibiting him from owning property or having bank accounts.

The scheme unraveled after officials at the order grew weary of his representations and asked the U.S Attorney's Office to investigate. He was arrested last summer.

Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said Bielecki's "days of luxury and lies are over" and that the sentence should send a message that those who take advantage of others by abusing a position of trust will be held accountable.

“Paul Bielecki exploited his position as a friar to defraud hundreds of innocent victims," Podolsky said in a statement Thursday, March 27, announcing the sentence. "He faked a charity to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then used these stolen funds to live the high life."

The prison term imposed by U.S. District Judge Vincent Briccetti was on the high end of the 51 to 63 month sentencing guideline the two sides stipulated when Bielecki pleaded guilty to wire fraud in November.

Bielecki will also be under three years of supervision following his prison term and was ordered to forfeit $563,448.

Pawel Bielecki apologized for actions 'far away' from the Gospel

Prosecutors Benjamin Levander and Ryan Allison had argued for a sentence in that range, citing in part the brazenness and long-running nature of the fraud.

"This was not a single lie, told to a faceless third-party or the investing public, leading to millions of dollars in losses in one fell swoop," they wrote in a sentencing memo. "Bielecki, for nine years, spoke as a priest and looked victims in the eye and told brazen lies about invented charitable work."

Bielecki apologized in a letter to the judge that was included in his lawyer's sentencing submission.

"People trusted me and I took actions that are far away from what Gospel was teaching me," he wrote. "I will live with pain I caused and I hope that one day people will forgive me."

His lawyer, Jane White, sought a sentence of only 2 1/2 years, citing Bielecki's lack of a criminal record, a history of mental health problems, and a fatherless childhood, abusive mother and sexual abuse by two teachers in his native Poland.

"Mr. Bielecki acknowledges he used this immoral course of conduct to spend excessively and live a bigger life than the one he really had, to try to mask his pain and perhaps to fool even himself about his poor self-worth," White wrote.

"He sees now his trauma manifested itself in the elaborate personas he made, of a doctor, a surgeon, a descendant of a royal family and a selfless humanitarian," she wrote. "His spending and false portrayals of himself were wrongful, misguided attempts to fill a lifelong void. He now recognizes how empty that spending left him. Instead it has cost him everything."

In a statement made last year, Friar Robert Abbatiello, the order's provincial minister, said the province "reported Friar Paul’s suspicious behavior to the U.S. Attorney’s office and is continuing to fully cooperate with them," referring to Bielecki by his anglicized name.

"Until recently, there was no reason to suspect the veracity of his credentials," the statement continued. "The province conducted a vigorous internal investigation which revealed Friar Paul was not who he represented himself to be, misrepresented his background and academic credentials, had been making false representations to raise money for overseas charitable projects that did not exist and used our headquarters and our other offices as conduits for some of the funds raised."

The U.S. Attorney's Office urged anyone who believes they may have been a victim of Bielecki's to contact Special Agent Sean Smuth at 914-993-1900 or follow the instructions at https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/report-crime .

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Capuchin friar White Plains NY gets 5 years in prison for fraud scheme