Court date set for former Blessed Sacrament priest
Leclair preliminary hearing in January
A beloved and popular priest accused of stealing from the Glebe’s Blessed Sacrament Church is set to be back in court early next year.
Father Joe LeClair was charged with fraud, theft, breach of trust and laundering the proceeds of crime after an Ottawa police investigation found that more than $240,000 was allegedly misappropriated at the church over a fiveyear period between 2006 and 2011.
Another $160,000 in church money was unaccounted for, police said, while approximately $20,000 in furniture and household items belonging to the parish were allegedly taken from the rectory when the priest left.
Some of those items have since been recovered.
LeClair’s preliminary hearing is expected to begin Jan. 20, his lawyer, Matthew Webber, said Friday.
A preliminary hearing is used to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed to trial and is typically covered by a publication ban.
LeClair has steadfastly denied taking money from the church.
LeClair was charged after an 11-month police investigation into the financial dealings of the church.
The police investigation came four months after the Citizen first raised questions about financial irregularities at Blessed Sacrament in a story published in April 2011. It revealed LeClair had a casino gambling problem and had incurred $490,000 in personal credit card bills during the years 2009 and 2010. More than $137,000 of those credit card charges were the result of advances taken at Casino du Lac-Leamy.
The same story revealed that Blessed Sacrament had few controls on the way in which church money was handled.
LeClair admitted last April he had a gambling problem after the Citizen published its story that revealed the extent of his addiction and the ease with which he could access church funds.
LeClair resigned as pastor of Blessed Sacrament in May 2011. He entered a specialized addictions treatment program and was on sabbatical at the time the police charged him.