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48-Year-Old Volunteer Caught Stealing From Church Donation Box

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Many parishioners start their day with early morning prayers at Holy Family Catholic Church in Glendale, but police believe that's not all one parishioner, Armando Vasquez, was up to for the past few months.

Deacon Ron Baker says after early morning prayers, Vasquez offered to help sweep the floors before he went to work. The church staff then soon found out that as he was cleaning the floors, he was also cleaning out the chapel's donation box.

"There was $100-$150 less a week," Baker said.

They began noticing less money in the collection and that there was glue on the box, so they turned to their security video for answers.

The video shows Vasquez looking around nervously then poking around the chapel's donation box.

He eventually pulls out a flashlight and sees if there is any money inside. The next day, Glendale police say they went undercover at the church and saw him do the unholy deed.

"He took a coat hanger, and had a piece of tape on it," Baker said.

" And what he would do is stick it down here and go up and down and then he would pull the dollar bills out," he added.

The 48-year-old Vasquez was eventually arrested by Glendale police where they then found the marked money from the church's donation box.

"It hurts us because it's a sacred place... We have to forgive him and we are praying for him that he will recover and repent from his ways to not do it in the future," Baker said.

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