Fake Priest Arrested, Bogus Priest Arrested

Fraudster who posed as a priest for two decades and celebrated masses, funerals, marriages, heard confessions and practised medicine without a license is arrested after selling fake tickets to see Pope Francis - A fraudster who posed as a priest for decades has been arrested on suspicion of selling fake tickets for the visit of Pope Francis.

Erwin Mena, 59, celebrated masses, funerals, marriages and heard confessions around California since first posing as a priest in the mid-1990s.

He also practiced medicine without a license while offering a 'system or mode of treating the sick', according to his arrest warrant.
Last year, Mena allegedly sold tickets to a pilgrimage to visit New York and see the Pope during his Philadelphia visit in September, prosecutors said.

The trip supposedly included airfare and lodging at convents.

He allegedly pocketed more than $15,000 for the con, while he was posing as a priest at St Ignatius of Loyola in northeastern Los Angeles.

Michelle Rodriguez, 60, and some of her friends and co-workers paid more than $950 each in cash for the trip.

She told the Los Angeles Times: 'It was a great deal for the price. We were thinking, 'Oh, we'll have this great time in New York. We'll see the Pope and it will be a great experience.''
'He used us, he stole from us, and that's it.'

Mena made a convincing priest according to those who signed up for the trip.

Joaquin Oviedo, a retired public high school teacher, told the paper: 'He smiled, talked about how good things were. There was never anything negative. He was not a fire and brimstone kind of preacher.

'We had always been raised not to question authority figures. He's a priest - what he said is holy writ. We never imagined he was a phony.'