November 25, 2019
NEW YORK – Today, we learned that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the New York Office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (“USPIS”), announced the arrest of Jerome “Jerry” Dimitriou, former Executive Director of Administration for the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOARCH).
According to the Justice Department’s website, Dimitriou was charged on wire fraud charges for committing two embezzlement schemes: 1) where he allegedly embezzled more than $488,000 from GOARCH by directing subordinates to issue him unauthorized excess salary payments; and 2) where he allegedly charged hundreds of personal expenses to his GOARCH credit card, without authorization, costing GOARCH at least tens of thousands of dollars.
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese first became aware of these financial irregularities in late 2017. GOARCH immediately self-reported its discoveries to governmental authorities and cooperated with the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the Inspector-in-Charge of the New York Office of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on their investigation.
The Special Investigative Committee formed by GOARCH that included the law firm of Baker Hostetler and PriceWaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC formed to review the finances of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine found no evidence of any theft of any kind against St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine. GOARCH publicly posted these results on its website in 2018. Thus, the alleged embezzlement that Mr. Dimitriou has been charged with today appears to be unrelated to St. Nicholas.
GOARCH has had a review of its finance function performed by an independent accounting firm and its Audit Committee to ensure the highest levels of governance, segregation of duties and authorization of expenditures.
GOARCH is committed to full transparency with its faithful and with governmental authorities, and will continue to cooperate fully with them with respect to Mr. Dimitriou’s arrest.
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