A disgraced New York City priest, who was accused of embezzling $1 million from his congregations and allegedly using the money for sexual encounters with his own ‘Sex Master’, was found dead in his New Jersey home.
Rev. Peter Miqueli, 57, was found passed away at a Cornell Drive home in Brick Township Thursday, confirmed local cops, who did not provide more details about how the Roman Catholic priest died.
The Ocean County Medical Examiner started an investigation to determine how Miqueli died. A spokesperson was not immediately available when DailyMail.com reached out.
Miqueli resigned in December 2015 as pastor of New York City parish St. Frances de Chantal, located in the Bronx, after he was accused of living a sordid double-life as the urine-drinking sex slave of a musclebound S&M master, Keith Crist.
Rev. Peter Miqueli, 57, was found passed away at a Cornell Drive home in Brick Township Thursday. The Roman Catholic priest resigned from a New York parish he was heading in 2015 after he was accused of embezzling $1million he allegedly used for romps with a sex master
Miqueli was accused of living a sordid double-life as the urine-drinking sex slave of a musclebound S&M master, Keith Crist (pictured)
The priest was alleged to have paid out $1million to bodybuilder Keith Crist, in exchange for an unspecified number of $1,000 sexual interludes, allegedly funded by embezzling from church coffers.
Crist when located by the New York Post was unnerved by the news of the priest’s death. ‘I can’t even speak right now’ he told the newspaper before he hung up.
The priest also was alleged to have spent the money on as much as $60,000 in ‘illicit prescriptions’, according to a lawsuit filed by his parishioners.
Miqueli was even accused of using the funds to cover the cost of his $264,000 home in Brick, according to a lawsuit filed by his parishioners.
No one answered the door to Miqueli’s ranch-style home when the New York Post reached out.
The priest’s brother Joseph said he was notified by cops about his brother’s passing, but said he didn’t have anymore information.
‘I don’t know what happened to my brother. They won’t even tell me where they found him, how they found him,’ he said.
The brother said he and Miqueli were no longer speaking, but that he texted the priest every year on his birthday, July 7.
‘No matter what he did, he was still my brother and I still love him,’ Joseph told the Post. The priest and his brother were among 12 siblings.
Miqueli was even accused of using the funds to cover the cost of his $264,000 home in Brick, according to a lawsuit filed by his parishioners
The Archdiocese of New York said at the time of the lawsuit that the allegations against Miqueli could not be substantiated. An investigation by authorities did conclude he had taken more than $22,000 collected from congregants.
The archdiocese repaid the sum and no charges were filed, the Post reported.
The disposition of the lawsuit was not known.
Miqueli resigned in December 2015 as pastor of New York City parish St. Frances de Chantal (pictured), located in the Bronx, after he was accused of living a sordid double-life as the urine-drinking sex slave of a musclebound S&M master, Keith Crist
Miqueli also had begged to have a threesome with his girlfriend at the time, she claimed.
Tatyana Gudin said the priest was trying to lure her into his erotic fantasies.
According to Gudin, Miqueli and Crist, who is in his 40s, used whips, chains and chastity belts in drug-fueled romps which culminated in the bodybuilder urinating in the priest’s mouth while he was still dressed in his dog collar.
Details of the alleged sexual romps were revealed in a lawsuit filed by parishioners just before Miqueli resigned 4 1/2 years ago.
Gudin piled extra claims on top of the suit, telling the New York Post that Miqueli tried to drag her in as well.
Gudin, who was dating Crist at the time, said: ‘When Miqueli met me for the first time, he told Keith he thought I was pretty.
‘Miqueli started asking Keith to try to pull me into their perverted sex games. I, of course, declined.’
Gudin had previously claimed that Miqueli focused his attentions on her in the hope of fulfilling a ‘sick fantasy of defiling a pretty Jewish girl’.
Miqueli, accused of stealing over $1million in donations to fund the alleged sex romps, was accused of using the donation plate at leading churches on Roosevelt Island and in The Bronx when he led congregations there to pay for the encounters with Crist.
Gudin at the time alerted New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, but said nothing changed.
She wrote: ‘I would like to tell you who your priest, Father Miqueli, really is. Keith has been Father Miquelis gay, for-pay prostitute [sic].
‘More specifically, Father Miqueli is Keith Crist’s toilet slave.
‘If you don’t know what that means, Cardinal, I will break it down for you…
‘Keith Crist uses Father Miqueli as his toilet, and Father Miqueli drinks his p*** during their weekly, 3 day get-togethers when they take off to Father Miquelis [sic] house in Brick, NJ, far away from prying eyes.’
An email from a New York Archdiocese lawyer confirmed to the Post that Gudin’s emails were received.
Gudin also claimed in her email that Miqueli had an interfaith fantasy of being humiliated in front of a ‘nice Jewish girl’ in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
Gudin, Crist’s former girlfriend and confidante of ten years, wrote to Dolan about Miqueli’s taste for high-end booze and put Crist in charge of a church thrift shop in order to pay for their luxuries.
‘Miqueli loved to enjoy $300 bottles of Scotch,’ she wrote. ‘All on a priest’s $2,474-a-month salary.’
She wrote that Miqueli had fired the St Frances thrift-shop staff in order to put Crist in charge, who turned it into thriving business, but ‘only reported $50,000/year’.
‘To add insult to injury, to cover his imbezzling [sic] activities, Miqueli would every so often fire whoever was the right-hand employee in the thrift shop, by accusing them of… theft!’ she wrote in her email.