Cleveland, Aug. 31, 2007 (
CWNews.com) - Bishop Anthony Pilla, the former leader of the Cleveland, Ohio diocese, said that he was stunned to learn that a trusted aide had engaged in a scheme to draw secret payments from the diocese.
Bishop Pilla testified in the trial of Joseph Smith, a former chief financial officer for the Cleveland diocese, who is charged with receiving up to $750,000 in payments for his part in a scheme to defraud the diocese. Smith resigned from his post with the Cleveland diocese in 2004, shortly after the finance council began to raise questions about diocesan accounts, and the bishop suspended him from his post. Bishop Pilla himself resigned in April 2006.
