Pueblo Special prosecutor Stephen Jones announced today that former Episcopalian priest Donald Armstrong, ex-pastor of Grace Church in Colorado Springs, has entered a “no-contest” plea to felony theft in exchange for a deferred judgement and sentence.
Armstrong, 61, indicted by a 4th Judicial District grand jury in 2009 on 20 counts of felony theft, was accused of embezzling almost $300,000 from church and trust funds over eight years to pay for his two children’s college.
Armstrong and his loyal congregation already had lost a civil trial last year to determine who owned Grace Church and St. Stephen’s Parish, a historic downtown property valued at about $17 million.
The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado and parishioners loyal to the bishop won back the church that Armstrong’s congregation had been occupying.
“The recent actions taken by the court in the criminal proceedings against Don Armstrong bring closure to a very sad chapter in the life of this diocese,” Bishop Robert J. O’Neill said in a statement released this evening.
Armstrong, theologically more conservative than the Episcopal Church had become, broke away in May 2007 to form a new Anglican congregation.
An Ecceliastical Trial Court in 2007 removed him as an Episcopal priest of the diocese after finding him guilty of stealing a total of $392,000 from parish-controlled coffers.
Armstrong denied the charges and stayed put in the Grace Church building. After a civil court judge ordered him to give it back to the diocese, Armstrong and his breakaway congregation moved to a new building they called St. George’s Anglican Church.
Armstrong could not be reached for comment Friday.
Diocesan Chancellor Larry Hitt said that Armstrong’s entry of “no contest” to a felony theft charge and his effective guilty plea to an additional misdemeanor theft charge were “tacit acknowledgement of the truth of the criminal charges against him.”
“Armstrong’s theft constituted an abuse of trust and a betrayal by a priest of his church,” Hitt said in a statement.
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
