Man charged with stealing from Holy Hill collections
Sheriff ’s Office: Counter took as much as $50K
A Richfield man has been charged with stealing thousands of dollars over the course of a year or more from donations to the Holy Hill basilica, where he had been a trusted counter.
Pierre Valodine, 75, apparently was able to skim as much as $50,000 — possibly more — as one of several volunteer counters at Holy Hill National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians in Erin, but was finally caught during a sting operation by the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
According to the criminal complaint:
Basilica staff noticed that donations were down more than $100,000 from the fall of 2017, and eventually set up an iPad to record a counting session last month. It captured Valodine slipping cash into his pockets 18 times over a three-hour session.
Administrators then contacted sheriff’s detectives, who set up their own live feed video on Oct. 24.
They saw Valodine pocket money as soon as it was emptied from a collection box, and then confronted him. He had more than $1,400 on him.
Last week, he told detectives he stole the money to pay for prescriptions and medical bills and estimated he took about $1,300 every week since February. Valodine had been a counter at the church since September 2017.
Now he’s facing two counts of theft of more than $10,000, each punishable by up to five years in prison. He appeared in Washington County Circuit Court last week and was released on a $10,000 signature bond. He is scheduled to return for his next hearing Nov. 21.