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WTF?! Mobile games are known for their addictive nature, something that can lead people to spend a lot of money on them. Take the example of the Catholic priest who was recently arrested and charged with stealing over $40,000 from his former parish and spending it on the likes of Candy Crush and Mario Kart.
Reverend Lawrence Kozak, 51, was charged with theft and other related crimes for allegedly using a church credit card to spend $41,879.83 on mobile games between September 2019 and July 2022, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer (via Kotaku).
Investigators say the spending came to light in 2022 when an accountant working at the Pottstown, Pennsylvania, church discovered “an astronomical amount of Apple transactions” on the parish’s credit card statements during a financial review. The Apple ID was allegedly registered to Kozak. Church funds had also been used to buy items using an Amazon account registered to Kozak, including a Fire Table and a child’s backpack for his goddaughter.
Kozak denied knowingly using the parish credit card when he was brought in to speak to police after the charges were discovered, claiming that both his personal bank card and the parish credit card were connected to his iPhone. He said the church card was used for authorized streaming services and Microsoft Office software, but admitted that he may have used it to buy game items because he was not “a details guy.” He added that the purchases were for “powering up” rather than gambling, and that he was seeking counseling for his addiction to playing and spending money on online games, according to the affidavit.
Kozak’s games of choice were Candy Crush, Mario Kart Tour, Pokémon Go, and Cash Frenzy, as well as various slot machine and hidden object games. Records show that he actually made payments totaling $10,600 from a personal bank account toward the church’s credit card balance.
Kozak was placed on administrative leave by the church in November 2022. His replacement at Saint Thomas More Parish told police in 2023 that he received a letter from Kozak containing a cheque for $8,000 for “Parish reimbursement.” The handwritten letter read: “I am so sorry that I made this mistake which has been any source of stress for you.”
Kozak was charged last Thursday and has since been released after posting $250,000 bail.
A lot of cases in which obscene amounts of money have been poured into mobile games involve children spending their parents’ cash. A 13-year-old spent $64,000 on pay-to-win mobile titles in China last year. There was also the case of an 11-year-old who spent almost £6,000 (around $7,465) on in-app purchases over the course of just two weekends in 2017. And in 2020, a dad discovered his daughter, also 11, spent $6,000 on Roblox, claiming she thought it was Monopoly money.
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