After a two-day preliminary hearing, a spokesperson for the San Diego County District Attorney’s office told media Friday that Bishop Emmanuel Shaleta will face a full trial on 16 counts of money laundering and embezzlement.
The bishop, who until March led the Chaldean Catholic Eparchy of St. Peter, 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.
And while Shaleta is expected to remain out of jail until his trial, a judge earlier this year reportedly rejected his plea to have an ankle monitor released, citing the bishop’s frequent trips to Mexico as a sign that he is a flight risk.
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The two-day hearing last week — meant to determine whether the charges against Shaleta warrant a full trial — featured testimony from eparchy staff and diocesan consultors.
Initial witnesses 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 San Diego Union-Tribune, testimony also came eparchial finance council member Garvin Garmo, who testified that Shaleta violated diocesan policy by signing checks without a second signatory, and that he declined to give answers when confronted about it.
In February, The Pillar broke the news that Shaleta had been accused of taking cash rental payments, and reimbursing the eparchy by writing single-signature checks from a charity account he had established — effectively moving money from one account to another to cover the apparent theft of more than $270,000.
In court, the bishop’s attorneys argued that as diocesan bishop, Shaleta had the discretion to decide how to manage and spend the eparchy’s funds, and could not be accused of embezzling over which he rightfully had control.
The Church’s canon law, on the other hand, establishes strict controls for the use of ecclesiastical funds by diocesan bishops, and requires accounting for cash withdrawals.
The Pillar reported last week that before his trial’s preliminary hearing Shaleta rejected the possibility of a plea offering that would have seen him plead guilty to some offenses, but likely avoid the prospect of prison time. The bishop told friends that he expects to be exonerated in court, sources said.
Sources close to the case have also told The Pillar that a judge earlier this summer rejected Shaleta’s petition for the removal of an ankle monitor, judging him a flight risk because of immigration records indicating that he had traveled dozens of time to Tijuana in the span of two months.
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Shaleta was arrested at San Diego’s airport March 5, as he attempted to leave the United States with more than $9,000 in cash.
He pled not guilty March 9 to 16 criminal counts of money laundering and embezzlement, and saw his resignation from office accepted by Pope Leo the next day.
While most documents in the case remain sealed, the bishop’s recently unsealed arrest warrant details the case against him.
Consistent with The Pillar’s reporting, the warrant says that 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.”
The warrant details the allegation that Shaleta perpetrated a rent scam, by directing a tenant to pay him monthly rent on an eparchial property in cash, and then writing checks from the eparchy needy account to cover the missing money in the cathedral account.
Between March 1 and October 31, eight such checks were written from the needy account, the arrest warrant recounted — most for $33,990, but the first for $34,000.
“The cash received by Bishop Shaleta was never placed into the [needy] accounts to reimburse the checks written to the [cathedral accounts],” the warrant alleged.
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 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.
He is also 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.
The bishop has not offered an explanation for the reimbursement discrepancies in his diocesan accounts. Shaleta has said he is the victim of a media campaign and of Chaldeans in his diocese who opposed his leadership.
Shaleta’s trial could begin this autumn. If convicted, he could face 15 years in prison.