Crack-addled robber burglarized churches for molesting children – NY Daily News
The crack-addled burglar accused of robbing 11 Bronx churches claims he broke into the poor box as revenge for the child sex scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church.
“I am angry at the church for molesting children,” Nathaniel Linden, 51, told cops who caught him robbing St. Philip Neri Church on the Grand Concourse Sunday.
“That’s why I started going after churches. I don’t case them out,” he said. “I just walk by and get angry.”
Linden waxed theological with detectives looking to link him to other church robberies, according to court papers filed in the Bronx.
“How could (God) let this happen?” he said of the sex abuse scandal that has drawn an extraordinary series of apologies from Pope Benedict. “How can there be a God?”
Linden also told cops he became “angry at God” after witnessing his mother’s murder and having a “miserable” childhood in foster care, sources said.
People who know Linden dismissed the explanation as the ramblings of a drug-addicted thief.
“He never said anything about the Catholic Church,” said pal Dennis Perrington, who lives in Linden’s Kingsbridge Heights building. “He was robbing from the poor. That’s despicable.”
Sister Mary Cleary, principal at a school that was robbed of cash and a laptop, said Linden had only hurt “innocent people.”
“The kids who learn here didn’t do anything wrong. They’ve been affected by this,” she said.
Linden did express regret for urinating outside one house of worship while admitting to the rest of his Christmas season crime spree.
“You got me for all the burglaries,” said Linden, who has been slapped with two robberies counts but is likely to be hit with several more.
The admitted crack addict is suspected of ripping off thousands of dollars meant for the needy in nine other church burglaries since Nov. 6, sources said.
Linden was released from prison Nov. 4 after serving five years for an earlier string of church burglaries. He is being held on $50,000 bond.
Via: Crack-addled robber says he burglarized churches for ‘molesting children’.
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