NEW YORK
New York Post
By PHILIP MESSING
October 9, 2003 — Cops found more than they expected when they went to arrest a Queens priest on harassment charges – guns, gay porn and Nazi paraphernalia, officials said.
The Rev. John Johnston, 64, also told cops more than they expected.
Sources said he confessed he had swiped $80,000 from a Long Island church where he has celebrated Sunday Mass for the past 25 years.
Johnston’s arrest late Tuesday night on aggravated harassment charges shocked officials in three Catholic dioceses:
* In the Brooklyn Diocese – his home base for almost 40 years – where cops claim he made “threatening and harassing” obscene calls to staffers at Bishop Loughlin Memorial HS in Fort Greene.
* In the Rockville Centre Diocese, where he helped celebrate mass at St. Martin of Tours Church in Bethpage while he allegedly embezzled $80,000 that parish officials never missed.
* And in the Newark Archdiocese, where he taught at the all-boys Oratory Preparatory School in Summit for 23 years, until his retirement last June.
