Alleged burglar posed as priest

Authorities say `Father Martin' used his fake credentials to blend in at churches and steal money

Malin Rostas is no saint, authorities say, nor is he even a priest.

Riverside County sheriff’s deputies arrested the 45-year-old New Yorker on Thursday after learning he was wanted nationwide for posing as “Father Martin,” accused of blending in at churches and stealing money.

Rostas had just attempted to burglarize a Moreno Valley church when deputies at about 11 a.m. Thursday spotted a black Porsche sedan with Virginia license plates in the 10000 block of Pigeon Pass Road that matched the description of the car used in several burglaries, a news release said.

He was arrested on a felony warrant issued in Pennsylvania.

Rostas was being held without bail at Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside. Church officials in Southern California were on the lookout for Rostas.

“He has been on our radar. He visited some parishes in our diocese in the last year, for sure,” John Andrews, a spokesman for the Diocese of San Bernardino, which oversees the Catholic churches in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, said Friday.

Rostas gained access to St. Catherine of Alexandria Parish and St. Francis de Sales Parish, both in Riverside, Andrews said. Rostas was not able to steal anything at St. Catherine, and Andrews still was trying to get information on what happened at St. Francis.

Andrews said notices were sent to churches throughout California.

“A good thing in the Catholic church, a priest can’t just show up at a parish and say, ‘I’m here to help celebrate Mass,’ ” Andrews said.

He explained that a priest must present documents called faculties that detail who he is and his purpose for visiting.

“That’s the kind of safeguard that is probably a benefit in a situation like this. It’s hard to pull that off,” Andrews said.

Bradley Zint, a spokesman for the Diocese of Orange, said its security department sent an alert about Rostas to its parishes recently. Zint declined to say whether Rostas had been seen in Orange County.

In the Pennsylvania case, according to the Gettysburg Times, Rostas was identified from a home camera surveillance recording as the person who took $15,500 from a locked drawer. The recording was uploaded to a law enforcement database, and authorities in the United Kingdom put a name to the face, according to court documents cited by the Gettysburg Times. The story did not explain what connection he had to the United Kingdom.

Rostas is Romanian and also goes by the name Moyse Lingurar, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department said.

The sheriff’s release included a photo of Rostas that also was distributed to the media after the theft of $900 from American Martyrs Roman Catholic Church in the New York borough of Queens in March. There, according to ABC/7 in New York, a man introduced himself as Father Martin and said he was visiting from Rome. A real priest invited the alleged imposter into his rectory, where $900 subsequently went missing.

“He’s a vulture, gypsy; he knows what he’s doing,” the Rev. Peter Rayder told the TV station.

Sheriff’s investigators believe there are more victims nationwide and encouraged anyone who believes he encountered Rostas to call his local law enforcement agency.