Chaldean Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, who is facing more than a dozen charges of money laundering and embezzlement, is expected to face a criminal trial after rejecting the possibility of a plea deal, sources told The Pillar.
A potential plea deal could have seen the bishop handed probation instead of prison time, if he agreed to plead guilty to some lesser crimes.
A preliminary hearing in Shaleta’s case began Thursday, with testimony expected to last two days. The bishop could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
In February, The Pillar broke the news that Shaleta had been accused of embezzlement and personal misconduct, amid a Vatican investigation that ended with Pope Leo accepting the resignations of both Shaleta and former Chaldean Patriarch Rafael Sako in March.
Shaleta, who previously led the Chaldean Catholic eparchy covering the western half of the U.S., is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from his eparchy, attempting to reimburse missing funds with checks signed by him from a cathedral charity account.
He is alleged to have made frequent trips to a Tijuana brothel linked to the human trafficking industry, and known to have maintained a longstanding and close relationship to a woman with whom he shared a bank account and unfettered access to each others’ homes.
Shaleta maintains his innocence and has repeatedly told Catholics in his diocese that he will be vindicated. He pled not guilty March 9 to 16 criminal counts of money laundering and embezzlement. He claims to be the victim of a media campaign and of Chaldeans in his diocese who opposed his leadership.
Witnesses at the preliminary hearing included the Chaldean eparchy’s San Diego cathedral banquet hall manager, who reported being asked by the cathedral’s office manager in March 2024 to pay rent in cash because the bishop needed cash to help those in Iraq.
The cash payments went on for some six months, he said.
The office manager said she was instructed by Shaleta to collect the rent money of nearly $34,000 per month in cash, and that she gave it directly to the bishop. She said she informed someone on the finance committee of the situation after a few months.
According to the arrest warrant in the case, Shaleta first fell under suspicion in December 2024, when “discrepancies” were noticed in eparchy and cathedral bank accounts, including “approximately $427,345 missing from the [eparchy’s ‘needy account’] over an eight-month period.”
In addition to the rent scam, the arrest warrant recounted the charge that, “it appeared Shaleta would receive cash for church related trips, perpetual Masses, and other rental hall related costs.”
When that and other funds were found to be missing, “Bishop Shaleta was unable to provide documentation or records of how the cash was spent,” and “later claimed the cash was given to those in need in Iraq without providing further information,” the warrant’s affidavit alleged.
The bishop was released from jail in early March after making a bail of $125,000. A San Diego judge ordered the bishop to undergo GPS monitoring until his trial, noting the amount of money he is alleged to have stolen, and the fact that he was arrested while at the airport, with a flight booked to Europe, and more than $9,000 in his possession.
The Pillar also reported that while Shaleta submitted a letter of resignation from his diocesan post in late January, Patriarch Sako lobbied at the Vatican and among Chaldean bishops to see the bishop transferred to an administrative post in Baghdad, as a high-ranking official of the Chaldean patriarchate.
Sako had previously acknowledged to The Pillar that he raised the prospect of a transfer to Vatican officials, but suggested the idea was floated only before the Vatican-ordered investigation into Shaleta was “clear.” Sources have told The Pillar that the dicastery received a report on the case in late 2025, well before Sako polled Chaldean bishops about a transfer this year.
Sako’s resignation was accepted March 10, the same day as Shaleta’s, in a move widely taken among Chaldeans as indication of Vatican displeasure with the patriarch’s involvement in the case.
After Shaleta’s arrest, Bishop Francis Kalabat, who leads the Chaldean eparchy for the eastern United States, told the local faithful that they “absolutely” have “the right to know what is going on” regarding the accusations facing Shaleta.
“You are the children, you have every right to know what the father of this household is going through,” said Kalabat, in a homily in the Eparchy of St. Peter’s cathedral parish. He praised as “necessary” media outlets “who are coming out and saying the truth as it is, without putting judgments.”