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Riverside County sheriff’s deputies arrested the 45-year-old New Yorker on Thursday, April 10, after studying he was wished nationwide for posing as “Father Martin,” accused of mixing in at church buildings and stealing cash.
Rostas had simply tried to burglarize a Moreno Valley church when deputies at about 11 a.m. Thursday noticed a black Porsche sedan with Virginia license plates within the 10000 block of Pigeon Pass Road that matched the outline of the automobile utilized in a number of burglaries, a information launch stated.
He was arrested on a felony warrant issued in Pennsylvania.
Rostas was being held with out bail at Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside.Church officers in Southern California have been looking out for Rostas.
“He has been on our radar. He visited some parishes in our diocese within the final yr, for certain,” John Andrews, a spokesman for the Diocese of San Bernardino, which oversees the Catholic church buildings in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, stated Friday.
Rostas gained entry to St. Catherine of Alexandria Parish and St. Francis de Sales Parish, each in Riverside, Andrews stated. Rostas was not in a position to steal something at St. Catherine, and Andrews was nonetheless making an attempt to get data on what occurred at St. Francis.
Andrews stated notices have been despatched to church buildings all through California.
“A very good factor within the Catholic church, a priest can’t simply present up at a parish and say ‘I’m right here to assist rejoice Mass,’ ” Andrews stated.
He defined {that a} priest should current paperwork known as schools that element who he’s and his objective for visiting.
“That’s the sort of safeguard that’s most likely a profit in a scenario like this. It’s onerous to drag that off,” Andrews stated.
Bradley Zint, a spokesman for the Diocese of Orange, stated its safety division despatched an alert about Rostas to its parishes just lately. Zint declined to say whether or not Rostas had been seen in Orange County.
In the Pennsylvania case, in response to the Gettysburg Times, Rostas was recognized from a house digicam surveillance recording as the one who took $15,500 from a locked drawer. The recording was uploaded to a legislation enforcement database, and authorities within the United Kingdom put a reputation to the face, in response to court docket paperwork cited by the Gettysburg Times. The story didn’t clarify what connection he needed to the United Kingdom.
Rostas is Romanian and in addition goes by the identify Moyse Lingurar, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department stated.
The sheriff’s launch included a photograph of Rostas that was additionally distributed to the media after the theft of $900 from American Martyrs Roman Catholic Church in Queens, N.Y., in March. There, in response to ABC/7 in New York, a person launched himself as Father Martin and stated he was visiting from Rome. An actual priest invited the alleged imposter into his rectory, the place $900 subsequently went lacking.
“He’s a vulture, gypsy, he is aware of what he’s doing,” Father Peter Rayder informed the TV station.
Sheriff’s investigators consider there are extra victims nationwide and inspired anybody who believes they encountered Rostas to name their native legislation enforcement company.
