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6/23
Priest Charged With Smuggling $2.4B

By TOM HAYS .c The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - A Catholic priest who took a vow of poverty was charged Wednesday with trying to smuggle into the country $2.4 billion in fake Treasury notes. The Rev. Mario Beato-Prieto, 35, a Spanish citizen who was running a parochial school in the Philippines, was arrested Tuesday at Kennedy Airport after U.S. Customs agents discovered he was carrying the fake currency in his luggage.

Prosecutors said the priest tried to sell 24 phony $100 million notes through a broker. He also had $2,000 in cash, plus a document indicating he had access to another $65 billion in fake currency. But the notes looked more like $100 million bills adorned with a likeness of Grover Cleveland, marred by typos and runny ink.

They were confiscated after the priest arrived on a flight from South Korea. It was not immediately clear what the penalty Beato-Prieto would face if convicted. The bald, skinny priest was wearing faded blue jeans Wednesday when he appeared for arraignment in Brooklyn federal court. After he pleaded innocent to a charge of foreign transport of false documents, two fellow Spanish priests - like Beato-Prieto, members of the Augustinian order - asked the Magistrate Cheryl Pollak to release him into their custody.

``It's very nice two priests are here, but there's obviously something about this defendant they don't know,'' she said. Defense lawyer Abraham Clott also explained that the church could not raise bail because Augustinians take a vow of poverty. The judge said she would free Beato-Prieto on Thursday if the four priests living at the Holy Rosary rectory signed a $25,000 bond. The defendant would be under church arrest, confined to the rectory and the chapel when not in court.

At the request of the priests, the judge also agreed that Beato-Prieto could help say Mass.

AP-NY-06-23-99 2327EDT