The Rev. William Blasingame, the resigned Episcopal priest who's accused of stealing more than $84,000 from his church, is now accused of pocketing money one parishioner's family paid him for her headstone.
In 1999, Blasingame, 66, who until January pastored the prominent North Shore Episcopal church, told one woman that she could bury her aunt's ashes on the church grounds as long as she paid him $500 for a grave marker, the New York Post reported today.
It was 83-year-old Vera Farley's dying wish to have her final resting place be on the stately Stapleton grounds where she faithfully went to church for many years. But after paying the $500, her niece never heard from Rev. Blasingame again.
"It dawned on me that he took Aunt Vera's money," Ms. Farley's niece, Doris Harris, told the paper. "I'm very disappointed. Church people don't do this to their members. It's hard to believe that someone of his stature would do this to a loyal member of St. Paul's.
Her aunt's ashes still rest in a box on a bookshelf between a crucifix and a Virgin Mary statue in Ms. Harris' home.
Rev. Blasingame stole a total of $84,537 over the three years starting in January 2005, and spent it on plastic surgery, Botox injections and prescription drugs, authorities contend. He could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted at trial of the two felonies with which he is charged, second-degree grand larceny and second-degree criminal possession of stolen property.
http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/accused_staten_island_cleric_r.html
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