If a kind, gentle, elderly priest from Notre Dame offers you or your church the chance to improve the grounds of your house or your religious home all while making a positive impact on your community and donating to charity, then, unfortunately, you had better think twice before you get involved. Sadly, in the case of Byron “Father Barney” Canada, a 62-year-old Michigan man, the entire thing was nothing but a scam[1]. Since 2004, Canada ran two lending corporations in Michigan. By collecting upfront fees for as much as $25,000 and promising that those fees were going to charitable organizations and churches, the faux priest, who was ordained at one time as an Orthodox-Catholic but left the church, managed to collect in excess of $2.7 million before he was finally convicted on federal fraud charges.
Canada, who pretended to be a priest at Notre Dame and often took potential clients on tours of the university’s chapel in order to increase his “aura of legitimacy and honestly,” has pled guilty to 24 counts of wire fraud, money laundering and criminal conspiracy. His main targets were churches seeking to expand their facilities and developers. The loans that he promised to make to these institutions would have been impossible for his agency to finance, but when investors tried to get their money back, Canada would simply fire back with a countersuit or ignore them. Now, the false priest will spend the next 11 years in prison.
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[1] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-in-priest-fraud,0,3797747.story
