[Nothing to do with Medjugorje, although some similarities to the scandals there: A Franciscan priest in trouble with the local diocese and also a woman; and much money put to other than religious use]
‘Playboy priest’ flees with a million euros, married woman
Agence France-Presse | Updated: October 16, 2012
Zagreb: A Croatian priest has run off with almost one million euros ($1.3 million) after illegally selling church property, officials said on Tuesday, amid media reports the Catholic clergyman had fled with a married woman.
Franciscan priest Sime Nimac earlier this year signed a deal with a local firm to sell a plot of church land, the Split archdiocese said in statement.
Nimac, 34, the former parish priest of Baska Voda on the southern Adriatic coast, in May withdrew more than 980,000 euros in cash from the parish’s account “without a valid explanation why the money was taken and what it will be used for,” the archdiocese added.
Local media have reported that the priest, described as a handsome aficionado of expensive clothes and luxury goods, had fled the country with a young woman who is a married employee of the bank from which the cash was withdrawn.
The property had been sold without church authorities’ written approval, and the Franciscans have filed a suit to annul the deal.
According to media reports, Nimac had recently demanded to be defrocked.
[The law quickly caught up with him]
Croatian police arrest Catholic priest accused of stealing $1.7 million of church money
By The Associated Press
October 18, 2012
ZAGREB, Croatia – Police in Croatia say they have arrested a Catholic priest who allegedly made off with more than a million euros of church money.
Police said Thursday they launched a criminal probe against priest Sime Nimac after the Church accused him of illegally selling church land for €1.3 million ($1.7 million) and taking the sale money. They said Nimac was arrested on Wednesday in the capital of Zagreb.
The case has drawn much public attention in Croatia. Local media have reported that Nimac also ran off with a married woman who had allegedly helped him draw the money from the bank.
Jutarnji List newspaper said Nimac denied the allegations against him in a phone interview.
Sime Nimac? Isn’t that a sleep aid?
Sorry, in reading the article I was reminded of PJ O’Rourke’s line about the Bosnian war: The one where the unprounounceables were shooting the unspellables.
[Cherchez la femme et le cash]
‘Playboy’ priest arrested – but no sign of money or woman
A Croatian priest who allegedly went on the run with £1 million and a married woman has been arrested – but the whereabouts of the money and the identity of the woman are unknown. The 34-year-old clergyman has been charged with abuse of office and had his passport confiscated.
By Matthew Day, Warsaw
22 Oct 2012
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/9625899/Playboy-priest-arrested-but-no-sign-of-money-or-woman.html
Father Sime Nimac was arrested in a Zagreb flat after disappearing from his parish near the coastal town of Split with a huge amount of cash he had got from selling a piece of Church land without the permission of his diocese.
Described by his Franciscan order as a man with “insatiable egotism”, the 34-year-old clergyman has been charged with abuse of office and had his passport confiscated to prevent him fleeing the country.
Croatian media has speculated that Father Nimac may have used the money from the land sale, which was concluded five months ago, to fuel a lavish lifestyle that included fine clothes, cars, a yacht called “Lucky Me” and the attentions of a married woman.
Despite his arrest he has so far refused to divulge where the money is, or what has happened to it, and police searches of his home and the Zagreb apartment where he was arrested have drawn a blank.
Father Nimac has admitted to selling the land and keeping the money, according to Croatian magazine Index, but he has rejected allegations of theft. He will, according to the magazine, reveal the location of the money when he conducts his own defence.
Gordana Friscic, a friend of the fugitive priest who put him up when he came to the Croatian capital, said Father Nimac intended to meet senior figures of the Catholic Church to explain his actions. In an interview for the paper Vecernji List, Mrs Friscic contradicted stories of a playboy priest imbibed with a taste for opulence and women.
Playboy Croatian priest’s [female] ‘accomplice’ [and mistress?] arrested
A female banker believed to be the accomplice of a Croatian Catholic priest who went on the run with around a £1 million pocketed from an illegal property deal has been arrested.
The 34-year-old clergyman has been charged with abuse of office and had his passport confiscated
By Matthew Day, Warsaw
26 Oct 2012
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/9636145/Playboy-Croatian-priests-accomplice-arrested.html
Jasmina Bilonic, 41, faces charges of aiding Father Sime Nimac abuse his office and authority when he allegedly sold a piece of Church land without permission earlier in the year. The director of private banking for a Split bank was remanded in custody.
Arrested in Zagreb last week, Father Nimac hit the news in both his native Croatia and around the world when he disappeared from his parish with millions of Croatian kuna in cash, and leaving behind a mountain of rumours of an extravagant lifestyle festooned with cars, fine clothes, boats and a relationship with a married woman.
But despite the scandal and Father Nimac’s Franciscan order issuing an apology for his behaviour some of his parishioners have rallied to his defence, claiming that the 36-year-old priest was led astray by a mysterious femme fatale character.
“We are not trying to justify what he did but he was blackmailed by her after they had a relationship,” two locals from the town of Biograd, where the priest lived told the newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija. “He literally paid her to keep her quiet. The whole town knows all about this.”
The paper cites other Biograd residents as saying that an expensive car, a motorboat called “Lucky Me” and a flat, which were believed to have belonged to Father Nimac, were in fact bought to placate his blackmailer.
In an interview for Slobodna Dalmacija conducted before her arrest, Mrs Bilonic denied having any romantic ties with Father Nimac.
“We were not having an affair. It seems that if he was seen having a cup of coffee with a woman they were presumed to be having an affair,” she told the paper. “I knew him and our relationship was purely business because as head of the parish he had an account in our bank.”
Although some of the money made from the property deal appears to have been already spent Father Nimac has so far refused to reveal the whereabouts of the rest of the cash.