Standing earlier than the spiritual icons that line his Ukrainian Orthodox church in Humboldt Park, the Rev. Nicholas Chervyatiuk has ministered to followers who arrived in Chicago as refugees after surviving Nazi Germany's reformatory camps.
Now the cook County public guardian is accusing the priest of improperly taking greater than $500,000 from the rate reductions of 1 of those displaced persons, a 93-year-historic former church secretary diagnosed with dementia.
Chervyatiuk has now not been charged with against the law, and he denied any wrongdoing during a sworn probate courtroom examination and in a Tribune interview.
He says Nelly Bridgeman wanted him to have her cash, which he noticed as fee for the care he supplied as her health and mental schools failed.
"or not it's for my work," Chervyatiuk testified all the way through the court examination. "It became for 14 years and i believe it become time for me to get paid. ... Nelly desired it that manner."
He informed the Tribune he estimated these features have been worth "about $25,000 per yr."
Chervyatiuk, 55, allegedly used Bridgeman's funds to assist two eating places he ran with a convicted drug dealer, his Brash & Sassy Inc. hair salon and his portfolio of Chicago-enviornment rental houses, in keeping with probate court papers and separate land, enterprise and court statistics.
He has held vigour of lawyer over Bridgeman's affairs considering the fact that March 2015, when she become diagnosed with dementia and moved into a nursing home, statistics exhibit.
Public guardian Robert Harris pointed out: "it's one more example of how aged americans get ripped off by using the most depended on americans."
The priest's deepest lawyer, Dmytro Kurywczak, noted Chervyatiuk "is working with the office of the general public Guardian to come up with some form of a resolution that may be in the top-rated hobbies of Nelly Bridgeman."
Chervyatiuk's Holy Patronage Church, at 900 N. Washtenaw Ave., is a part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate, one in every of three predominant Orthodox organizations in that nation.
A North American church chief, the Rev. Victor Poliarny, told the Tribune it changed into "now not appropriate" for a priest to take a parishioner's dollars in a personal transaction. Church authorities are trying to find "reliable documents substantiating the accusation," Poliarny stated. "once we comfortable the authentic documents related to this count, the higher authority of the Kyiv Patriarchate will make sure relevant punitive measures for the alleged conduct."
a local of Ukraine, Bridgeman had been a German World battle II prisoner, and Chervyatiuk in his court docket examination mentioned signing his name to her reparation tests from the German executive.
in the court examination, Chervyatiuk pointed out: "It belonged to me, every little thing. She knew that and he or she instructed it to everybody."
Suspecting fraud, a bank authentic in December contacted the general public guardian's office. In March, affiliate cook County choose Shauna Boliker authorized the office to gather fiscal statistics and check how much of Bridgeman's money Chervyatiuk spent on her care and how tons he allegedly transformed for his personal use.
The agency, which now is Bridgeman's criminal guardian, says it'll seek court permission to get well any cash wrongly transformed via Chervyatiuk. because the probate case proceeds, Boliker has ordered monetary associations to freeze $one hundred seventy,000 of the priest's very own and enterprise financial institution debts.
on the public guardian's request, a doctor this 12 months examined Bridgeman and determined she "became totally incapable of constructing economic and private decisions."
After coming to america in 1950, Bridgeman married a U.S. provider member and would serve for greater than two decades as secretary of Chervyatiuk's church, court records demonstrate. Her husband died in 2004 at 79. The couple had no little ones.
"In church i was her priest and at domestic i used to be her cherished son," Chervyatiuk testified all over the June 24 probate courtroom examination. Chervyatiuk changed into born in Germany and raised in Ukraine, he referred to.
right through the past five years, Bridgeman had been unable to prepare dinner, wash or store for herself, Chervyatiuk spoke of. "She saved lots of stuff in the condominium. so that you couldn't definitely stroll in the condo. You needed to find a route," he stated.
In March 2015, Bridgeman fell and injured a hip, data demonstrate. at the sanatorium she become clinically determined with dementia. Chervyatiuk then positioned her in a Chicago nursing home, statistics reveal.
A day later, Chervyatiuk met with Bridgeman and attorney Julian Kulas on the nursing facility and Kulas drafted papers that gave Chervyatiuk energy of legal professional for Bridgeman, in accordance with the public guardian.
"That power of legal professional made him dependable to use her funds for her first rate and in her greatest interest, and never for himself," Harris spoke of.
Kulas' son, Paul Kulas, is appearing as his father's legal professional in the case and pointed out there turned into no fallacious behavior on Kulas' half. Kulas is "cooperating fully" with the general public guardian and the courtroom, his son said.
in the next 12 months, Chervyatiuk cashed in two CDs value $one hundred seventy,000 and transferred different money to debts he by myself controlled, probate court docket statistics filed through the public guardian allege. Chervyatiuk used his prison status to control Bridgeman's bills, value at the least $540,000 and maybe as much as $625,000, in line with the general public guardian.
all through that length, Chervyatiuk put as a minimum $22,000 of Bridgeman's funds into two eating places he ran with Alban Tase, forty one. He additionally without delay gave Tase two tests from Bridgeman's account totaling $6,500, probate courtroom statistics show.
Tase pleaded guilty in 2010 to federal drug conspiracy expenses after an undercover operative met with him in a Chicago nightclub and steakhouse to trade shipments of stolen cigarettes for Ecstasy capsules.
He changed into among more than a dozen defendants convicted as a part of a world Balkan crime operation that laundered cash and trafficked in heroin, weapons and contraband buyer goods, federal court docket records demonstrate.
Authorities tracked the crime ring's offers from New Jersey to Canada, then the Netherlands, Albania and regions of Macedonia, Serbia and Kosovo.
Tase achieved three years of supervised free up in might also following a federal prison time period that is not special in public information. makes an attempt to reach him for remark were no longer successful.
In Chervyatiuk's June 24 examination, he noted Tase become his business accomplice in two Chicago-area pancake condo restaurants, each because closed. Chervyatiuk noted he didn't be aware of Tase became a convicted felon.
"I just recognize one thing. He stole cash from me too, and i do not know where he's," Chervyatiuk testified.
Chervyatiuk later informed the Tribune that Tase turned into worried with just one of the pancake homes.
Chervyatiuk additionally wired thousands of bucks to a Western Union office in Ukraine, authorizing native contacts to choose up the funds, records demonstrate.
"We have been assisting the church," Chervyatiuk referred to, including that the money had been for an iconostasis — one of the crucial panels of icons and religious paintings that decorate jap Orthodox church buildings.
requested in the court docket examination if the cash wasn't as a substitute spent on the Ukrainian-Russian defense force conflict, Chervyatiuk stated: "I don't really need to discuss it now."
within the case of 1 $26,000 Bridgeman investigate, Chervyatiuk testified: "I do not remember what I did with that, probably for my very own things."
certainly one of Bridgeman's domestic health care aides allegedly informed the public guardian that Bridgeman once in a while appeared confused and handled Chervyatiuk like her deceased husband.
The aide said she saw Chervyatiuk faux to be Bridgeman's husband and kiss her on the lips, based on court docket papers filed by means of the general public guardian.
Chervyatiuk also took title to land Bridgeman had owned in Texas, asserting in his courtroom examination that Bridgeman gave him the property. "in the future she did a surprise to me. She took me to a restaurant and gave me those papers," he stated.
Bridgeman became not the simplest parishioner who gave Chervyatiuk significant own gifts, data show. a different church follower, Maria Lewczenko, died in December at 93 and made him executor of her property with $20,000 in accounts and $one hundred,000 in actual estate.
Chervyatiuk declined to focus on that matter with the Tribune, announcing best: "I had many girls who i attempted to aid."
dyjackson@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @poolcar4
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