the man moloney

in New York

Since 1961, this neighbourhood priest has run

a modern Boys' Town, helping the

no-hope kids of the Lower East Side. So how

did he end up in jail for four years

with his name linked to the IRA, the FBI and a $7.4 million Brinks heist?

It is 12.30 on a Monday afternoon in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, and the streets are full of black men with no shoes, skateboarders with dogs on a piece of string and shops selling birdhouses made from pine boards. I have stepped off the Downtown Number Six train from Grand Central, to Astor Place, and I am heading towards 606 East 9th Street, just off Avenue B, where Father Pat Moloney will greet me at the door. For the past 40 years this Irish Catholic priest has toiled among the detritus of New York's Alphabet City. Historically poor neighbourhoods where Latino mothers open their electricity bills and stare at them disbelievingly in the hope they will go away, where drug dealers sell vials of crack to girls with fresh tattoos, where old women carry groceries with worried steps and teens beg for dollar bills.

The Lower East Side has been a landscape of bad possibilities, ragged coats and the

wild, matted hair of the homeless. This

is Moloney's home. This is where beggars with Aids hold signs specifying their

t-cell counts. This is where crazy, half-naked men ride bicycles carrying baskets of kittens and where a sign on a fenced-off

area for animal exercise, in Tompkins Square Park, insists that people must be accompanied by dogs.

I arrive at number 606. There is no outward sign, no cross and no bless-all-who-enter-here signs. It is a plain, five-storey brownstone tenement in a street propped up by a Lutheran church and a community school. I have not seen this priest for more than four years but he greets me warmly at the door, and I ask how he is keeping. ''I'm rolling with the punches, Mike, as always, thank God,'' says the diminutive, white-bearded and pink-faced, 65-year-old native of Limerick, Ireland, now a naturalised American citizen.

On the wrist of his right arm hang ''Jesus beads'', similar to rosary beads, traditionally used for perpetual prayer by monks. He fingers them constantly.

Inside the hunched building, through a crooked passageway, crumbling plasterwork and floors that need re-sanding, is his office, standing just as it looked four years ago. On the walls there are some reproductions of Greek Orthodox icons of Jesus and Mary, and some holy crosses.

At the back of the office is his bedroom, a closet-sized cell where he has slept most of his life. His bed is made up of three metal filing cabinets, placed side-by-side, with a mattress on top and a sheet. His room is a reminder of the way all priests' houses should be - simple, unadorned and monkish - but never are. There is a brutal clarity to his room.

A potted history of this priest's work would go like this. Father Moloney was the founder of Bonitas House, a shelter for disadvantaged youths on the Lower East Side, which has provided an urban refuge for emotionally, psychologically and materially deprived youths from pre-teen years to roughly the age of 25, for more than three decades. Since 1961, after setting aside his studies for the priesthood, he established, with two friends, Bonitas Youth Services, ''bonitas'' being the Latin word for goodness.

Prior to his ordination he started the Lazarus Community, a semi-monastic group dedicated to serving the poor. The members of the Lazarus Community, who joined from the surrounding area, took no vows, but lived in poverty ''in the sense of sharing all that we have''. His philosophy is simple: ''I believe you can change your own corner of the world by getting out and doing something concrete, and when you change a part of anything, the whole is changed.''

Over the years Moloney has helped hundreds of youths of multi-ethnic origin who have found themselves in trouble with the law, much in the same tradition as Father Flanagan, who was immortalised by the great American movie, Boys' Town. Bonitas House has a steadfast open-door policy. No-one is turned away, even if the beds have to be made up in the office or lounge. Yet, ironically, Father Moloney's own bed has been available for occupation for the past four years.

The priest, who was ordained in 1977 under the Eastern rite of the Melkite Greek Catholic church (still obedient to the Pope) - because of the ''fascinating'' liturgy and the ''collegiality'' he had observed ever since he was introduced to the rite in 1956 at a lower Manhattan chapel by Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day. ''The people are intimately involved in the running of the Church. There is no 'monarchical' aspect, as in the Eastern church; that's a relief from the legalism of the West'' - has been sleeping elsewhere. He has rested in another bed, roughly the same size, but without the support of the filing cabinets. In a slightly bigger room, ironically in a former Catholic seminary perched on a ridge in the Allegheny Mountains, Father Moloney has been a guest of the United States government. For the past 51 months he has been known as Federal Prisoner 28251-0545 for his alleged role

in a $7.4m robbery. He has risen daily, with five other men - all convicted drug dealers - at the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania.

This is the story of how a priest came to be there and why he still maintains his innocence. It was on January 5, 1993, that masked gunmen drove away from a squat, red, cement block building at 370 South Avenue, Rochester, New York. The building was a Brinks depot and the $7.4m that was taken led FBI investigators to a retired Irish-American cop; a Queens comic-book dealer from Ireland, formerly one of the ''Blanket Men'', those Long Kesh prisoners who went on strikes and fasts

in refusal to co-operate with the British Government - a series of protests that ended in Bobby Sands's much publicised fasting to death; and Father Moloney.

Initially, investigators speculated that an organised crime syndicate was behind it,

but later the investigation focused on a Brinks guard, Thomas O'Connor, who was an IRA supporter, and then Samuel Millar, a former IRA member, who lived in Jackson Heights, Queens. Millar had been smuggled into the US via Canada six years before, by O'Connor, whom he had met in Ireland. Months later, FBI investigators followed Millar and videotaped him entering an apartment sub-let by Father Moloney in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan. An FBI raid on the 1st Avenue apartment yielded so much cash that agents could not count it at first. They also reported finding a money-counting machine and a sheet listing about $1.5m, broken down by denominations. They raided Bonitas House and $168,000 was found in Father Moloney's safe. The prosecution contended serial numbers showed $108,000 of the money in the 1st Avenue apartment had been stolen in the Brinks robbery. Of the money in Father Moloney's apartment

none was directly tied to the crime.

The priest and the comic book dealer were subsequently convicted of conspiracy to possess $2m of the stolen money. But O'Connor, whom investigators considered to be the mastermind behind the robbery, was acquitted. Some $5.2m is still missing.

Another man, Charles McCormick, a teacher, was also arrested alongside Millar, O'Connor and Father Moloney. McCormick was known to the priest as he held the lease on the Manhattan apartment where the money was found. However, prosecutors failed to show McCormick knew of the money or its source. ''I knew Charles and he was kind enough to lease the apartment to me, but I had never heard of O'Connor or seen him before the trial. When I did see him for the first time he apologised to me for what was happening and said it was a disgrace. Sam also assured me from the very beginning, 'Father Pat, you've got nothing to worry about. I will clear you completely since you had nothing to do with this'.''

Millar, however, much to the chagrin of the priest, has never made any such public statement. The most damaging evidence for Father Moloney, prosecutors said, were the videotapes of him entering the apartment alone with Millar.

We sit down. Father Moloney is small and timid. He is wearing black trousers and a white T-shirt, the simple unadorned uniform of the priesthood on a hot day. Despite his obvious timidity, he is confident, relieved and eager to talk. Boxes stuffed with documents, which the priest believes will finally clear his name ''if not through the criminal court but the court of public opinion'' litter the large, dark room. The last time I spoke with the priest was four years ago, before his trial, when he was out on bail. He is certainly not your average parish priest. (Years ago, following a precedent set by a Chicago priest, he adopted Jason Patino, an orphaned boy who lived at Bonitas House. In 1996, Patino was found murdered in an apartment in Manhattan.) When this is pointed out to him he says, with incredulity: ''I certainly hope not.''

I have seen the press clippings on his life's work spanning 40 years. I have spoken with his neighbours and locals who know him well or have heard about his work. Before I have taken out my tape-recorder, notebook and pen, his first statement to me is this: ''I am not only not guilty of this crime, I am totally innocent. I'm as innocent as the lamb of

God. There is a profound difference.'' This difference - between mere legality and morality - goes in some way to explain, I later discover, how he possibly came to end up convicted of conspiracy to possess stolen money. And how he found it nearly impossible to shake off IRA suspicions.

It is like being at confession, only the roles are reversed.

It was believed by investigators that the robbery had links to the IRA, but that was not proved in court. The US authorities have long suspected that Moloney's unapologetic and outspoken support for a Northern Ireland free of British rule may have motivated him to try to funnel money to organisations in Ireland. However, there was never any solid evidence of IRA ties to the crime and US District Judge David Larimer prohibited testimony about the IRA at the trial.

Father Moloney does not deny his political ideologies and philosophies. In 1982, on a visit to Ireland, he and his brother, John, were arrested on charges of gun smuggling. The charges against Father Moloney were dropped, but his brother pleaded guilty and served three years. Those charges, Father Moloney maintains, are the key to the suspicions he has IRA ties.

He does not apologise for his outspoken views and republican sympathies. ''In the past I spoke throughout all the hunger strikes speaking for peace, but I also spoke out against apartheid in Africa. I worked with members of the Polish underground movement and I apologise to no-one for being a Christian and a believer in freedom and justice for all people. I am a democratic Christian communist who believes in the commonality of Man, in the best sense of the word.''

We return to the crime itself and I ask the priest to explain the circumstances that led to his arrest and subsequent imprisonment.

In the 1980s, he reveals, the neighbourhood where he worked began to see a large influx of aliens from all around the globe. They came from Eastern Europe, Russia, the Caribbean, Ireland, Scotland and even England. He began to work with these undocumented individuals, both spiritually and on matters of immigration.

''I worked clandestinely because, of course, anonymity was very important for them. But we never broke any law. I familiarised myself with the law and we circumvented the law, but none was ever broken.''

Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is not safe, or politic, or popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him that he is right . . .''

He continues: ''This land of the free can be very intimidating for people in this precarious position and, unless you have lived among them, I doubt whether you can understand what the fear is like to live in the woodwork, to live as someone else.''

He recalls the general amnesty of undocumented aliens which was granted in 1986 and the ecstatic feelings expressed by the first group of immigrants whom he managed to get temporary work authorisation. He estimates he has helped more than 600 immigrants get their green cards.

''I advised everyone never to keep anything associated with who they really were. Everyone worked under a different name.''

Father Moloney was introduced to Sam Millar after the apparent suicide of a young Irishman, Danny O'Connor. Millar was introduced to the priest as Sam Campbell. He also began to see more of an English boxer, Ronnie Gibbons, a friend of the recently deceased. Gibbons later disappeared and is now presumed dead.

''I was introduced to Sam through Bobby Campbell, the husband of young Danny's sister. Sam was a quiet man. He would never use two words if he could use one, never use one word if he could talk to himself. I also found out that Gibbons was the last person to see Danny alive. I mentioned this to him and he became flustered and asked if I was accusing him of anything. I said no.

''I did the funeral mass, arranged for the shipment of the body back home. I met

Sam's wife, his girls, whom I later baptised.

I learned that Sam worked as a handyman

on Park Avenue and was looking for a

bigger apartment.''

The priest later discovered that Millar (who used a number of aliases during his stay in the US, including Frank Saunders and Andre Singleton) was the last of the Blanket Men, who were revered in republican folklore.

''I had undying admiration for these men,'' reveals the priest. ''I make no bones about it. Ten men died and this man stood up for what he believed in. I got to know Sam well, though I wouldn't say on an intimate basis, but on a close, casual basis. If there was a problem he would call me.''

Through time, Millar revealed he was working on the side as a croupier for some casinos and also collecting the take before it fell into the hands of the police or stick-up men. According to Father Moloney, towards the end of 1992 Millar moved to a bigger apartment and had recently opened a store selling comic books. Around this time, Gibbons, a former boxer, was visiting Bonitas House looking for Millar.

''It seems 1992 was a good year for Sam and the bookstore. At the beginning of 1993 he came to see me several times and asked me to purchase a cash register, which I did. I remember blessing his store and his apartment and found that everything seemed to be going well for him.

''He approached me to buy a vehicle, saying he couldn't risk putting one in his own name. I saw nothing wrong, morally or otherwise, and purchased a Ford Explorer.''

He shows me a copy of the loan details in which he borrowed $20,000 from the National Westminster Bank to purchase the vehicle. The FBI, however, made it clear to the media the Ford had been purchased with $26,000 in cash made up of $20 bills. ''I'm still being sued by the bank for the remainder of the payments,'' he says, ''and I'm pretty sure the FBI were aware of this loan agreement when they made their allegations.''

The priest also maintains the money found in his apartment was money he held for undocumented immigrants too afraid to use banks. It had been given to him for safekeeping mainly by illegal Irish and Polish immigrants who feared their savings would be confiscated if they were arrested or deported.

He claims he had set up an informal credit union among the undocumented. Money was placed in safe-keeping and was lent out, borrowed and used whenever required. Sufficient details of the sources of the confiscated cash, according to the priest, could not be adequately provided by him given he would be forced to break the seal of confidentiality bestowed upon him as a priest.

Turning to the 1st Avenue apartment, he says the amount of time he spent there with Millar was not unnatural. ''If someone needed to use the place I would go there to change the linen. If a lad and his wife from the occupied zone were over then I would give them the use of the place. By the same token, if an abused wife from the local area came to me, with her kids, looking for a place to stay, then I'd give her it for a few nights.

''One particular day, however,'' recalls the priest, ''I remember seeing a lot of money in the apartment I leased to Sam. I broached the subject with him. I thought it was the proceeds from gambling. I told him I didn't like so much cash around the place and he told me he would take care of it. He was counting bills by hand and I suggested getting a counting machine for him, which I later did. I truly believed it was gambling money and Sam was using the place as a holding house. I was a little nervous of the money but I left it at that. I trusted Sam.''

On November 12, 1993, the FBI arrived at Bonitas House and arrested the priest. ''When they told me I was being arrested in connection with a Brinks robbery, I have to admit I laughed. I was relieved. I thought I was being arrested for my work with the undocumented. I had nothing to do with any Brinks robbery or receiving any proceeds from it. I was so confident I would be cleared.''

He began to suspect, however, his arrest may have been something to do with Millar and the money in the apartment. His demeanour changes to one of ardent disappointment at the thought he may have been duped by a man he once revered. For the first time in the conversation he uses the name Millar instead of Sam. ''Part of me says Millar was involved, then another part of me says he would never do that to me because he knows my dedication to the undocumented of all nationalities. My God, I've even helped out English lads. I did not understand and I am deeply hurt by it. I suppose until I meet him again I'll never really know. But I cannot believe he would do this to me. Other people believed he stiffed me, I just don't know.''

He is visibly upset at the thought that Millar could have used him. I am finding it virtually impossible to believe I am in the presence of a man who was in any way wilfully connected to a million dollar robbery, whether to fund the IRA or not.

As to the fate of Ronnie Gibbons, the friend of the apparent suicide victim Danny O'Connor, he went missing in August 1995. His mother, Margaret Gibbons, arrived from England at that time and walked into the Manhattan offices of the FBI to say her son had disappeared. She told the FBI her son had admitted to being included in the preliminary planning of the heist, but armed robbery was not his game and he got out.

His mother reported he had disappeared after going to collect his cut from the alleged mastermind, O'Connor, after convincing himself he deserved a share of the unrecovered money. Gibbons had told friends and family, Millar invited him to help rob the Brinks and claimed he spent nearly two years planning it. He was last seen in August 1995. Margaret Gibbons made no mention of Father Pat.

His experiences in Federal prison have left an indelible mark on Father Pat's character. Inmates left their jobs on the outside and the priest was barred from officiating at church services and from pinning a crucifix to his wall. He wore a standard khaki uniform without a priest's collar. He swabbed toilets and shower stalls for $8 a month. Unofficially, however, he continued to conduct his clerical activities in an underground fashion. At dawn every day he would say private Mass in the room he shared with five other men. ''It was lies, innuendo and half truths which put me in prison. They made me out to be a pimpernel and underground IRA general. It was an attack on my freedom and justice for all men. Me a pimpernel, an overlord? For 40 years I've had nothing to hide. My life has been an open book.

''I spoke at Noraid dances, but I was never a member of any organisations, bar the Catholic church. I was friendly with all, but members of none. I was apolitical when it came to parties and organisations. I go where I feel the good men and women are carrying out the good fight for justice. But,'' he adds, ''looking back, perhaps I would not have missed it for the world.''

Much to his delight he was released in early September this year and plans to continue his ministry with the undocumented and dispossessed of the Lower East Side. (Last year Millar was transferred to a prison in Northern Ireland to be closer to his family.)

With the help of Harvard lawyers, he plans to analyse this case, ''to find out how much prosecutorial misconduct went on. There was perjured testimony by the FBI. I don't expect legal recourse through the courts, but I believe the court of public opinion will prove me innocent and on that basis I will go for a presidential pardon. I believe when they realised halfway through the trial they were going to lose O'Connor they came after me.

''Look, Mike,'' he implores, his hands surveying the room, ''I'm just a simple lower Manhattan priest who happens to hold some very forthright opinions. I have strong beliefs and loyalties. I have sympathy and compassion for everyone. I've sat in federal and state courts over the years and I would not have believed four years ago the FBI would have been capable of lying like they did before man and God. They knew they were lying. I heard agents repeating things they know I never said.''

So is Father Patrick Moloney - whose work was described by the Rev George Kuhn, a fellow Catholic priest in New York, as ''carrying out a unique ministry'' - guilty or innocent? The image Father Kuhn paints is not one of the criminal fraternity. ''Perhaps one would be scandalised at the sight of a Catholic priest, always in his black pants and black clergy shirt and roman collar, lugging furniture around the neighbourhood or fixing a junk car; people in the neighbourhood were not scandalised, they knew what this was about because it was their life as well. They knew from experience the poor live on the 'scraps' that fall from the tables of the wealthy. They knew Jesus told his disciples to go around and 'collect the scraps so that nothing goes to waste'. This was the work of Father Pat. Those who do not know the poor will not be able to understand. But this is the truth, so help me God.''

Someday we may learn the real circumstances surrounding the robbery. The $7.4m Brink's robbery has left more questions than answers. Federal authorities tried to tie the crime to the IRA, but offered no hard proof of any connection. Of the four men accused, two were acquitted and $5m of the cash is still missing. The case centred on prosecutors showing that defendants Millar and Moloney had a lot of unexplained cash in an apartment. The prosecutors also said Moloney had purchased a Ford Explorer with $26,000 in cash and that Millar paid in $20 bills for a $2400 Hawaiian vacation. This may lead people to believe that the defendants may have done something wrong. But what exactly does it prove?

The FBI still considers the January 5, 1993, Brink's heist an open case and declined to comment on the continuing investigation. A spokesman for the Melkite Green Catholic Diocese of Newton said Father Moloney was considered to be on a leave of absence while in prison and ''is still a priest in good standing''.

At the end of four days with Father Moloney I am still no nearer to imagining this priest as a conspirator to rob or conceal federal funds. At best, he was duped by a friend because of his unswerving and loyal republican sympathies - which he does not try to conceal.

''They sent a scapegoat out into the desert to die,'' says the feisty priest of Alphabet City, as I get up to leave, ''but he's come back with two horns of righteousness and justice and he'll butt them all on his return. I'm going to do it.'' And I believe him.