Cheating Priest Faces 8 Years Of Prison For Fake Marriage To Get Will Payout

A former priest is facing eight years of prison for marrying a dead man with a woman so that she and her daughter could inherit his estate.

The former priest, David Vargas, appeared before the Audience Court of Barcelona, in the eastern Spanish region of Catalonia where he was charged with faking the wedding of the woman with her boyfriend, who had already died, so she would inherit her dead partner’s estate.

The man had been a priest in Sant Vicenc de Castellet, also in the Catalonia region, between 2006 and 2011.

The couple, identified only with the names of Marcos and Leonor, reportedly had a loving relationship but he died in 2008.

As they had not got married, and there was no will, the woman was not eligible to be a benficiary of his estate valued at around 500,000 EUR

The priest and the woman reportedly planned the fake wedding with the man after his death, pretending to have married him five months earlier.

The woman’s daughter was also involved as she signed as witness of the wedding, even though she was aware it was false.

The prosecution accuses Vargas, the woman and the daughter for a crime of fraud and ask a prison sentence of eight years and a fine of 14,600 EUR

Local newspaper 20 Minutos reported that the former priest had been charged before for cheating elderly widows for years to take their properties and also stealing artworks in the churches where he was working.

Mossos d’Esquadra arrested him and found more than three million EUR  in cash in his house.

Vargas had been excommunicated in 2013 after a controversial picture with a young man was published, but he kept on acting as priest to keep on with the fraud, the TV program Espejo Publico reported.

The sentence has not yet been announced.