The principal of a Catholic elementary school in Queens yesterday sued the parish’s former pastor for sexual harassment by flaunting his homosexuality and being “vulgar” around her.
And a Queens criminal grand jury is probing the woman’s charges that Rev. John Thompson, engaged in financial shenanigans with parish money while he lived with a male teenager.
The principal, Barbara Samide, says that she complained about Thompson to Diocese of Brooklyn officials for more than a year before supervisors took action in March against Thompson, then pastor of St. Elizabeth’s Parish in Ozone Park, Queens.
Those complaints focused on Thompson living for several months last year with an 18-year-old man in the parish rectory.
Samide also says she told the diocese her concerns that parish money controlled by the priest disappeared, and that Thompson had told her he was $26,000 in debt because he had given money to the young man, a former homeless street kid named Jonathan.
“She knows that people complained to her that they had paid tuition … and it wasn’t recorded,” said Samide’s lawyer, Michael Dowd, adding that the parish has a six-figure deficit.
“She knows that he took $14,000 out of a safe that was raised at a candy sale, and she knows that it was never deposited.”
Dowd said she as early as December 2000 Samide notified Monsignor James Spengler, who oversees south Queens parishes for the Brooklyn Diocese, of her concerns.
Spengler told The Post that the first time he had ever heard from Samide about problems with Thompson was this past March 13, and that Thompson soon after resigned from the parish when he admitted allowing the teenager to stay in the rectory.
Thompson claims Jonathan only stayed for two nights, while Samide claims it was for several months, Spengler said.
Spengler also said the diocese has begun a review of St. Elizabeth’s finances.
“Monsignor Spengler is a liar, plain and simple,” said Dowd, adding that Samide kept a diary of her visits with Spengler, which show meetings much earlier than that acknowledged by the monsignor.