Stole Money From Westchester Donors Claiming the Funds Would Go To Victims in Lebanon
Matthew Podolsky, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that PAUL BIELECKI, a/k/a “Paul HRH Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,” a Manhattan-based Franciscan friar, was sentenced to five years in prison for perpetrating a multi-year scheme to obtain donations for a fake medical charity purportedly operating in Beirut, Lebanon. BIELECKI previously pled guilty to wire fraud on November 11, 2024, before U.S. District Judge Vincent Briccetti, who imposed today’s sentence.
Acting U.S. Attorney Matthew Podolsky said: “Paul Bielecki exploited his position as a friar to defraud hundreds of innocent victims. He faked a charity to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then used these stolen funds to live the high life. But Bielecki’s days of luxury and lies are over. Let today’s sentence be a lesson to all — if you abuse your position of trust to take advantage of others, you will be held accountable.”
According to the Complaint, Information, public court filings, and statements made in court:
BIELECKI is a friar in the Capuchin Order, a Catholic order of priests and brothers, based out of a friary in New York City. BIELECKI engaged in a fraudulent scheme related to fake medical clinics he claimed to operate in Lebanon.
Specifically, for nearly a decade, BIELECKI fraudulently raised money from victims by falsely claiming that he operated two medical clinics in Lebanon and was raising money for medicine, medical equipment, baby incubators, food, and an ambulance for those clinics. BIELECKI also lied to victims by falsely stating that he was a physician, vascular surgeon, cardiac surgeon, and/or general surgeon, who had earned multiple Ph.D. degrees, and by falsely claiming to have been badly injured—and his fake clinics badly damaged—by a widely reported August 2020 explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.
BIELECKI reached victims by fraudulently soliciting donations at church masses and through other church events, by appearing as a guest or through advertisements on radio programs and online podcasts, and through various other means, including campaigns on crowdfunding websites. Through his scheme, BIELECKI fraudulently obtained more than $560,000 in donations from more than 350 victims for his fake medical clinics. Despite taking a vow of poverty as a friar in the Capuchin Order, BIELECKI used the donations he fraudulently received to fund lavish personal spending, including first-class travel, a $334.40 per month membership at a luxury gym chain, multiple trips to the Hamptons, numerous meals at high-end restaurants, and aesthetic plastic surgery costing thousands of dollars.
If you believe you are a victim of fraud perpetrated by BIELECKI, please contact Special Agent Sean Smyth, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, at (914) 993‑1900 or by following the instructions available at https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/report-crime.
In addition to the prison term, BIELECKI, 48, of New York, New York, was sentenced to three years of supervised release, ordered to pay forfeiture of $563,448, and ordered to pay restitution.
Mr. Podolsky praised the outstanding investigative work of the Special Agents of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Division. Mr. Podolsky also thanked the New York Field Office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection for their assistance in the investigation.
This case is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Benjamin Levander and Ryan W. Allison are in charge of the prosecution.
To become a Capuchin friar, Bielecki took a vow of poverty that requires him to renounce and not to hold any property or bank accounts in his name for his personal benefit. The Province provides friars, including Bielecki, with a monthly stipend of approximately $250 for personal expenses.
From at least November 2016 through at least July 2019, BIELECKI directed victims to make out checks to the Province of St. Mary, headquartered in White Plains, NY, with “Fr. Paul Bielecki’s Mission” or a similar endorsement on the memo line.
