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Irish American Newsbriefs: Fr. Pat freed

February 16, 2011

By Staff Reporter

Fr. Pat Moloney will be set free to a half-way house in New York City this week.

Moloney will spend several weeks in the Marquis Hotel in midtown Manhattan, a building once occupied by the "Queen of Mean," real estate mogul Leona Helmsley.

The Melkite priest and native of Limerick has concluded his sentence stemming from his conviction in the January 1993 robbery of $7.4 million from a Brink’s armored car depot in Rochester, N.Y.

Well known for his work with troubled teens on the Lower East Side, Moloney was sentenced to 51 months in February 1995.

His early release, from a federal facility in Pennsylvania, comes as a result of good behavior.

Along with another man, Samuel Ignatius Millar, Moloney was convicted in November 1992 of conspiring to possess money stolen in the Brink’s heist.

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Moloney, 65, continued to protest his innocence in jail, appealed unsuccessfully against the verdict and, at one point, threatened to go on hunger strike, a course of action he ultimately decided against.

A year ago, Moloney was profiled by the New York Times. "I do believe that the finger of God has sent me here to tell the world about the unjust and dehumanizing conditions that prevail in our prison system," he told the Times.

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