Erwin Mena; fake priest

Someone sends us link to the story in the LA Times of Erwin Mena who has been impersonating a priest in Southern California for decades until his arrest yesterday.

Officers arrested Mena, 59, Tuesday in Elysian Park on suspicion of grand theft. LAPD Det. Gary Guevara alleged in court documents that Mena sold parishioners bogus trips to see Pope Francis last year in Philadelphia and New York. He has been charged with 22 felonies and 8 misdemeanors, according to a criminal complaint filed by the L.A. County district attorney’s office.

[…]

Mena, who also used the surname Menacastro, posed as a priest at St. Ignatius of Loyola parish in Highland Park. for about five months beginning in January 2015, according to Guevara’s affidavit filed in L.A. County Superior Court. Mena traveled from parish to parish, selling CDs that he recorded and peddling a book he claimed to have written titled: “Confessions of a Renegade Catholic Priest,” the affidavit states.

The Archdiocese has known about Mena since the mid-90s, but everytime they closed in on him, he’d disappear again. They say that they maintain a list of phony priests that numbers about 95 now. They say that a priest needs to present his DD214 or something to begin ministering, but somehow, this guy slipped through the cracks.

Lucky for him he’s within the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit Court, so I’m sure they’ll rule his fraud as a freedom of speech issue.

Category: Dumbass Bullshit