COURT PAPERS SAY PRIEST WAS DEALING DRUGS FROM CHURCH

NEW ORLEANS -- Who doesn't know about Bourbon Street? Strip joints,
gay bars, music blowing into the night, drunken tourists cutting
loose.

Not a fitting street for a Roman Catholic priest like Thomas Crandall
to live on, a superior said.

"Just the mention of the word Bourbon Street makes me think that this
was an inappropriate place for a priest to have a condominium," said
Monsignor Michael Reed, vice chancellor of the Catholic Diocese of
Pensacola-Tallahassee, which has suspended Crandall from his duties.

"Where did he get the money to have a condo there? I'd like the
answer to that," Reed said.

Crandall pleaded guilty Feb. 1 to one federal count of conspiring to
sell drugs. A priest for 20 years, the last three were spent at St.
Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Milton, Fla., a municipality about 15
miles northeast of Pensacola. The parish serves about 700 families.

Crandall paid $135,000 for the condo two years ago, according to
Orleans Parish records. The priest's personal finances are unknown. A
priest in Crandall's position makes $17,175 a year, Reed said. Food,
electricity, health insurance and shelter are provided by the church,
and the priest pays for his other living expenses.

Crandall, who remains in Escambia County Jail awaiting sentencing,
could not be reached for com ment. His lawyer, who commented briefly
prior to his guilty plea, did not return the Mobile Register's phone
calls after the plea.

Friend and former landlord and neighbor Blake Miller said people
might get the wrong impression about the priest's retreat on the most
notorious street in the Big Easy.

"It's making it sound like he's living above a strip club. It's not.
It's a residential area," Miller said.

Crandall's condo is in a green-and-white building, with an entry hall
that is surprisingly dreary, guarded by a tall, spiked iron gate. The
floor is cracked, the walls unadorned and a lone potted ficus tree is
backed up against a wall. It is blocks away from any action.

But the amount of time Crandall spent hanging out in the French
Quarter was "very much" strange for a priest, said another
acquaintance, Mickey Gil, who was captain of a gay Mardi Gras krewe
that Crandall belonged to.

Crandall, 47, had made New Orleans his escape for at least 11 years.

For part of that time, he shared an apartment with two other priests
from Florida. He participated in events put on by the French
Quarter's gay crowd, friends and neighbors say. For several years,
Miller and Gil said, he belonged to the Krewe of Petronius, described
by Ambush magazine, the Gulf Coast gay and lesbian entertainment
guide, as the "oldest gay Mardi Gras krewe in New Orleans."

A dual life:

Crandall's arrest comes at a time when the Roman Catholic Church has
been beset by high-profile criminal and civil cases involving
priests. Most of those cases involved accusations of pedophilia, not
drugs.

Those who knew and loved Father Thom, as he was called -- and there
were many -- almost universally say they were shocked at news of his
arrest. Court documents state that he was dealing drugs out of the
rectory at St. Rose of Lima among other places.

The documents state that he used New Orleans -- at least since last
year -- as a place to pick up drugs that he would bring back to
Milton to sell.

Who is Thomas A. Crandall, anyway?

"Jeckyll and Hyde," Gil said.

On a recent afternoon, nobody was home at the Bourbon Street building
that houses the condo. Or, if they were, they didn't answer the
buzzer.

Andrea Mariano, who lived in the next-door complex, said she didn't
recognize a photo of Crandall.

Around the corner, in a gay bar called the Golden Lantern, nobody
recognized a photo of him. One guy said he didn't want his name in
the paper but offered to escort a reporter through the French
Quarter. He's a local, he said. He grew up there and knows everybody.

But in bar after bar, both gay and straight, and in shop after shop,
people gathered around the photo and shook their heads. They've heard
of him, they said. Who hadn't, after he had been so spectacularly
arrested? Caught with 900 tablets of Ecstasy and some meth in his car
on his way back to Milton.

Ecstasy, officially methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is known
for giving some users positive feelings and empathy for others.
Experts say it can lead to short-term feelings of depression and
anger upon withdrawal and serious long-term physical damage.

The Ecstasy consumed in the United States is mostly manufactured in
Belgium and the Netherlands, said William Renton, special agent with
the New Orleans division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Unit. Easily
transported, it makes its way to the United States through express
mail delivery services and with travelers.

The New Orleans division re cently caught a dealer out of Florida who
carried Ecstasy in the spare tires of his cars to deliver to New
Orleans buyers, Renton said. He was arrested with 66,000 tablets.

Crandall's guilty plea could get him five to 40 years in federal
prison and up to a $4 million fine. He has agreed to give information
to investigators and, in exchange, investigators promised to seek to
lessen his punishment if his information proves helpful.

If Crandall had been a Sheetrock hanger instead of a priest, it would
hardly have been noted, said his lawyer, Roy Kinsey of Pensacola.

Kinsey said he couldn't talk about the details of the case against
his client. He also said he had not talked to Crandall about his
lifestyle in New Orleans.

Investigators will not talk about how he acquired his supply, saying
the investigation is ongoing. Court records say, however, that in
telephone conversations with an informant, Crandall said his supplier
had a key to the Bourbon Street condo.

Church business?:

Long before Crandall moved to Milton, when he was six or seven hours
down the coast pastoring a parish in Port St. Joe, Fla., he shared an
apartment in New Orleans with two other Florida priests, said
landlords Barbara and Donald Rusina. They were good tenants, the
Rusinas said. They paid their bills on time and were very neat,
having decorated their apartment sparsely with used furniture.
Sometimes they were all there at the same time, and sometimes they
were there alone, they said.

The Rusinas said they couldn't remember the name of the third priest,
but said he was older, and is now possibly retired.

Crandall sometimes conducted sacred rites in New Orleans, said those
who knew him there.

After repeated requests, he finally brought his purple stole to New
Orleans so he could hear Donald Rusina's confession, the landlord
said.

Barbara Rusina, who also owns a store selling Irish goods, said
Crandall would stop in to say hello. He bought a kilt to wear to
Notre Dame football games, she said.

He would eat light breakfasts -- egg and catsup sandwiches -- at a
small, sunny restaurant called Petunia's, said waiter Jerry Hotard.

"I've been working here 11 years and he's been coming here since
then," Hotard said. A couple times, the priest gave him tickets to
Saints games.

On Ash Wednesdays, the wait staff was usually too busy to get their
ashes at a church, so every year, Crandall would come in wearing
clergy clothes, say a blessing back in the pantry and daub the ashes
on their foreheads, Hotard said.

"I don't remember how it got started," Hotard said. "Someone may have
asked him or something. This year, it won't happen. Obviously.

"I never asked, but I thought he was here on church business," the waiter said.

Questioned about the possibility that Crandall and the other priests
had a ministry among gays in New Orleans, Monsignor Reed said he had
never heard of one, and that the diocese should have been notified if
there were one.

In the evenings, his friends said, Crandall frequented the French
Quarter's Star Steak & Lobster House, a narrow, candlelit place with
glass-topped cloth tablecloths, folded cloth napkins, and steaks for
less than $20.

He ate there the Friday before he was arrested, said assistant
manager Lily Gregos.

Crandall was very compassionate, and encouraged her when she was
depressed, she said. She said he once got agitated when a diner at
another table was speaking harshly toward two children accompanying
the diner.

"He was just having a fit," she said. "He was saying, 'Little people
have a right, too.'" He didn't intervene, she said, because she
calmed him down, and because the harshness did not escalate.

"He never forced religion on anybody," she said. "In this area,
that's not what you do. You let people come to you."

Miller said he believed Crandall came to New Orleans just to relax
and get away from the busy life of caring for a parish. Before he
moved to Bourbon Street, Crandall lived in several different
apartments on St. Peter Street. Often, he'd get called in New Orleans
and have to run back to his parish to tend to an emergency, such as
an illness or a death, Miller said.

"It's gotta be a tough life, being a priest," Miller said. "They're
normal people and they've got to have time to themselves."

When the priest was deciding whether to buy the condo, he showed it
to Miller, who advised him that having a Bourbon Street address was
important for resale value, Miller said.

And the priest was talking about selling it, partly because he
enjoyed himself more in his old neighborhood and partly because the
$1,100 monthly payments were getting to be too much, Miller said.

The Monday after Crandall was arrested, Miller tried to call him to
tell him that an employee of his was interested in buying his condo,
Miller said. He was going to ask the priest to send the key so the
employee could take a look at it.

Miller said he figured he could save Father Thom the real estate fees
of an agent.

Miller had no idea at the time that his friend was in jail. He didn't
find it out until later, when a friend called to tell him.

"Everybody is just like, 'What?'" Miller said. "We feel a little
violated ourselves because you know, you introduce him as Father
Thom. It's a little embarrassing and disheartening."

The ironic part, he said, is that he and all his acquaintances were
on extra good behavior around him. Now, he said, he feels that others
might consider him guilty by association.

Partying with the krewe:

Gil, the Krewe of Petronius captain, said the priest was a member of
the mystic society for three years, and stopped after joining the
Milton parish because he no longer had time to devote to it.

He came to one ball dressed as a lesbian suffragette, because the
theme was to dress as a gay character, Gil said.

Monsignor Reed sent a strongly worded e-mail in answer to one Mobile
Register question about Crandall's membership in that krewe.

"It is inappropriate and incompatible with priesthood for a priest to
apply and accept membership in a Mardi Gras krewe, which for whatever
reason compromises and undermines his moral integrity and brings
embarrassment upon himself, his parish, and the Church," Reed wrote.

"A priest, by virtue of his years of theological and spiritual
training and experience, should know or be capable of discerning what
activities are appropriate and inappropriate to him as a spiritual
leader.

"If Father Crandall was in actuality a member, as you say, of such a
questionable krewe for purposes other than offering ministry to men
and women struggling with a gay lifestyle then the shame and
embarrassment which the Catholic and wider community experiences upon
such revelations speak for themselves."

The bishop and a priest have visited Father Thom, to express their
concern and sorrow and to see if he had any messages, said Monsignor
Michael Reed, vice chancellor of the Pensacola diocese.

He said the church is conducting a complete audit of the books at St.
Rose of Lima, partly as a routine step as another priest takes the
reins and partly in response to the serious nature of the charge
against Crandall. The audit will be completed within the next two
weeks, he said.

Crandall has been suspended from his duties. He is still a priest,
but if he ever wants to serve again, he will have to go before a
church tribunal, Reed said.

Is it likely that Crandall will ever serve as a priest again?

"I would say no," Reed said.