Priest from Colorado Springs pleads no contest to theft

By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
09/18/2010

Pueblo special prosecutor Stephen Jones announced Friday that former Episcopal priest Donald Armstrong, ex-pastor of Grace Church in Colorado Springs, has entered a "no-contest" plea to felony theft in exchange for a deferred judgment and sentence.

Armstrong, 61, indicted by a 4th Judicial District grand jury in 2009 on 20 counts of felony theft, was accused of embezzling almost $300,000 from church and trust funds over eight years to pay for his two children's college. the rest

Titusonenine: Parish Response to Father Don Armstrong’s Plea Agreement
...In preparation for the now canceled trial we have become convinced even more strongly that controversies within the larger denominational church were the catalyst for the Diocese's investigation and complaint, for the purpose of silencing our bold and successful defense of orthodoxy through our parish's life, discipline, and teaching ministry.

We believe that the courts are not the place to deal with theological differences, and that to have allowed this dispute to continue to be played out in the news by going to trial would have served only to diminish all Christian witness. With this plea offer now in place such further harm to the entire church in this already difficult age for Christianity will be prevented...