Suspended priest known as Monsignor Meth receives 5-year prison sentence

Monsignor Kevin Wallin, a suspended Roman Catholic priest who has been nicknamed Monsignor Meth by the press, was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in prison on Thursday for running a methamphetamine distribution ring.

Wallin apologized to the court before his sentencing, and said “the day I was arrested was a very good day. It took me out of that situation.” Prosecutors say that Wallin, working out of Bridgeport and Danbury, Connecticut, received meth in the mail from a supplier in California, and then gave the drugs to a distributor in New York, The Associated Press reports. They also say he purchased a sex toy shop called Land of Oz & Dorothy's Place so he could launder profits from the drug ring.

Wallin's public defender said that when the economy took a hit in 2008, "he was floundering and overwhelmed," while Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Caruso said Wallin "abandoned his priestly life" to become a meth addict who "turned his apartment into a meth den for people to buy meth, use meth." Wallin pleaded guilty to a meth conspiracy charge in 2013 and has already served 28 months in jail, but U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello told him he could "not ignore your decision to infect your community" with meth. He also noted he was surprised by the dozens of letters he received in support of Wallin from friends and former parishioners, saying, "It's a little like attending your own funeral, your own wake."

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