{"id":281128,"date":"2026-09-08T00:00:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T00:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/281128\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T00:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T00:00:15","slug":"former-pennsylvania-priest-accused-of-stealing-750000-waives-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/281128\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Pennsylvania priest accused of stealing $750,000 waives hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Pennsylvania priest accused of stealing $750,000 waives hearing<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wgal.com\/news-team\/003b0fcd-4def-48bb-ad8b-2204a8b1d7fe\" aria-label=\"Lori Burkholder profile page\" class=\"css-15eikfp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788825614_148_003b0fcd-4def-48bb-ad8b-2204a8b1d7fe_1654041445.file.png\" width=\"48\" height=\"48\" alt=\"Lori Burkholder\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/a>, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"0\">A former Catholic priest from Pennsylvania and his mother waived their preliminary hearing last week on fraud charges after being accused of stealing $750,000 from multiple churches.  <\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"1\">Gregory Madeya, who previously served as a priest at churches in McKeesport, Derry Township, and Jeannette in western Pennsylvania, is accused by police of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from parishioners and donors over several years.  <\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5aef4ff6-124c-4e6a-8e00-b2f29775ebf2.jpg\" alt=\"Image no longer available\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" draggable=\"true\" class=\"css-fphibt\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Hearst OwnedWGAL<\/p>\n<p>Gregory Madeya<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/5aef4ff6-124c-4e6a-8e00-b2f29775ebf2.jpg\" alt=\"Image no longer available\" width=\"100%\" height=\"auto\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"css-hr9vxw\"\/><\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"3\">&#8220;There are no guidelines for what the priest can or cannot do with the money that they&#8217;re responsible for. To tell you the truth, priests are paid very, very little money to be priests and run a parish,&#8221; said defense attorney Patrick Thomassey.<\/p>\n<p data-node-id=\"4\">A judge set bail at $25,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Pennsylvania priest accused of stealing $750,000 waives hearing , Pa. \u2014 A former Catholic priest from Pennsylvania&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[117537,38130,14465,75691,117538,117539,112880,19611,71817,7201,83,117541,59658,28,117542,30,29,36702,7213,117540,1419],"class_list":["post-281128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-defense-attorney-patrick-thomassey","tag-derry-township","tag-dollar","tag-donor","tag-former-pennsylvania-priest","tag-fraud-charges","tag-gregory-madeya","tag-hundred","tag-jeannette","tag-mckeesport","tag-money","tag-multiple-church","tag-parishioner","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-church","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-priest","tag-thousand","tag-waives-hearing","tag-western-pennsylvania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}