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Chaldean Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, who is facing more than a dozen charges of money laundering and embezzlement, is expected to face a criminal trial after rejecting the possibility of a plea deal, sources told The Pillar.
A potential plea deal could have seen the bishop handed probation instead of prison time, if he agreed to plead guilty to some lesser crimes.
A preliminary hearing in Shaleta’s case began Thursday, with testimony expected to last two days. The bishop could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
In February, The Pillar broke the news that Shaleta had been accused of embezzlement and personal misconduct, amid a Vatican investigation that ended with Pope Leo accepting the resignations of both Shaleta and former Chaldean Patriarch Rafael Sako in March.
Shaleta, who previously led the Chaldean Catholic eparchy covering the western half of the U.S., is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from his eparchy, attempting to reimburse missing funds with checks signed by him from a cathedral charity account.
He is alleged to have made
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