By USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

The IRS has joined the criminal investigation of a Roman Catholic priest and the botched Corvette raffle at St. Jude the Apostle Church in Millcreek Township.

The Erie County District Attorney’s Office launched the probe in 2025 and is still involved in it, and the “IRS is conducting an ongoing investigation,” District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz told the Erie Times-News on March 5.

She said the IRS and her office are conducting a “joint investigation” of the Rev. Ross R. Miceli, the former pastor at St. Jude, one of the largest parishes in the 13-county Catholic Diocese of Erie.

Hirz declined to comment further, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Erie had no comment.

Miceli’s lawyer, Tim George, declined to comment.

A raffle and a made-up winner

Miceli is under investigation for allegations that he rigged the St. Jude Winavette raffle in 2024 and improperly spent parish funds, according to search warrants detectives with the District Attorney’s Office executed in March 2025 at the St. Jude parishes office, 2801 W. Sixth Street.

Tickets in the St. Jude Winavette raffle were $50, and the grand prize was a new Corvette Stingray or $50,000 in cash. The grand prize drawing was on Christmas Eve 2024.

The criminal investigation has so far revealed that Miceli awarded the $50,000 to a person he said lived in Detroit but who does not exist, according to search warrants that the Erie County District Attorney’s Office filed in the probe.

Financial records seized in DA’s investigation

The IRS’ review would be expected to include banking records and other financial documents connected to Miceli and the raffle, according to the search warrants. The warrants show that investigators in March obtained pages of financial documents, including IRS 1099 tax forms for Miceli and St. Jude.

Other seized records were connected to $300,000 in expenditures on an American Express card between January 2024 and March 2025, according to the search warrants. The money to pay the credit card bills, according to the warrants, came out of church accounts that Miceli alone controlled.

Detectives used another search warrant to get records related to Miceli’s gambling habits. That search warrant was executed in June 2025 at Presque Isle Downs & Casino in Summit Township.

The possible crimes the District Attorney’s Office is probing are tampering with records or identification, theft by unlawful taking or disposition and rigging a publicly exhibited contest, according to the search warrants. Those violations are state crimes. The IRS’ involvement indicates that federal tax crimes could also be under review.

Diocese says refund reviews are nearing end

The criminal probe is going at the the same time St. Jude launched a refund process for ticketholders of the botched 2024 raffle. St. Jude accepted refund applications from Dec. 7 to Jan. 3, and the parish is in the final process of reviewing the refund requests, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Erie said on March 6.

An independent accounting firm, HBK, is managing the refunds. The diocese is helping St. Jude’s new pastor the Rev. Michael Polinek, with the refund process, though St. Jude rather than the diocese is responsible for the refunds, according to the diocese.

St. Jude aimed to sell 10,000 tickets for the 2024 raffle — an annual event that had been the major fundraiser for the church. The parish held no car raffle in 2025.

The Catholic Diocese of Erie initiated the criminal investigation of Miceli in February 2025, according to the search warrants. The warrants show the diocese contacted the District Attorney’s Office after an employee at St. Jude raised concerns about the raffle and after Miceli then told Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence T. Persico he made up the name of the grand-prize winner — “Martin Anderson,” of Detroit.

Persico placed Miceli on leave without an assignment on Aug. 7 in response to the revelations about the raffle, which the Erie Times-News first reported on Aug. 6. Miceli, 42, whose final services at St. Jude were Aug. 3, is at a residence in Erie, Persico has said.