Las Vegas Parish Priest Pleads "Not Guilty" to Charges of Attacking Female Church Worker

Las Vegas is the kind of town where you expect to hear bizarre news. In smaller, less colorful areas of the country where some headlines would cause its citizens to gasp, similar tales would cause scarcely a shrug in the place known as "Sin City". Occasionally, though, something happens here that makes the ears of even the most jaded among us stand up.

Even here, in the "Fun Capital of America", we like to believe there are some places that serve as a spiritual refuge from all the weirdness usually associated with this city. My friends who live outside here don't really believe me when I inform them that we have a lot of churches here and that many, many Las Vegans regularly attend religious services of some kind. It seems, though, that even places of worship can't escape the taint of scandal.

52-year-old priest Father George Chaanine always seemed like a caring, compassionate priest to his congregation at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church, but that pristine image was shattered dramatically when he was arrested on February 1, 2007, after being on the run for a week, for attempted murder.

According to a 54-year-old church worker and area professional singer who claims she was sitting at her desk at the time of the alleged attack on January 26, 2007, Chaanine hit her in the head with a bottle of wine, then dragged her towards his office by her hair. She asserts that she was temporarily unconscious and that, when she came to, the priest was groping and choking her, only stopping when she started to pray. She says that Chaanine said he planned on killing himself before he abruptly left, fleeing the city. After authorities were called, an alert was put out on Chaanine.

He was seen, dressed in a black leather jacket and regular street clothes, on a bank surveillance tape in California and was later arrested, without incident, just outside Phoenix, Arizona. He was then extradited to Las Vegas on charges of sexual assault, attempted murder, battery with a deadly weapon and kidnapping. He has been jailed since that time.