Source: Getty Images / Getty Images
“I don’t care how hard life gets, I’m not stealing from no church” is not something that Chicagoans Jarrell Patterson and Artemio Calderon thought about.
The security guards have been accused of stealing as much as $100,000 in cash collections from Holy Name Church in Illinois. Police say the duo swiped between $88,000 and $100,000 in collections, but detectives are still working on determining the exact amount.
Rev. Gregory Sakowicz of Holy Name said in an email that they knew something was up, “While researching a shortfall in offertory collections, the leadership of Holy Name Cathedral discovered evidence of repeated criminal trespass at the Cathedral offices.” Adding fuel to the fire, the men were caught on surveillance entering the forbidden area where the money was stored six times between April and March.
Both suspects had worked for Monterrey Security, the cathedral’s sole provider of security for the past six years. But at the time of the burglaries, Patterson had been fired since January, but Calderon was still employed by the company. The church has since fired Monterrey as they’re security provider, understandably. Just last year, they were fired by the Minnesota Vikings stadium for “hiring felons and poor training”.
As for the culprits, Calderon’s attorney, Matthew Hickey, told reporters after the hearing that “right now we don’t have any kind of proof that Mr. Calderon had anything to do with taking the money. We’ve got a lot to figure out.”
