A merciful Catholic priest declined to press charges against a woman who was caught on surveillance video pilfering from a donation box at his parish, officials said.
Christa Polito walked into St. Benedict’s Church on Otis Avenue near Logan Avenue in Throggs Neck around 4:30 pm. on Jan. 12 and used an unknown object to pry open the box and swipe an undetermined amount of cash, according to police.
Video shows Polito, 30, peering up at the camera and then fiddling with the box — alongside a statue of the Virgin Mary and an image of Mother Teresa.
Cops nabbed Polito on Wednesday and initially charged her with petit larceny — but that charge was dropped after the church’s forgiving pastor, the Rev. Stephen Norton, said he did not want to press charges, according to a spokeswoman for the Bronx District Attorney’s office.
Norton said his parish had recently gotten its video security system, and only notified police of the theft so that cops could “begin to create a trail should this happen in the future.”
“I never expected it to hurtle into an immediate arrest,” Norton said. “It was the furthest thing from my mind in the beginning.”
Norton said parishioners had told him they’d seen Polito inside the church and around the neighborhood in the past.
When the Bronx District Attorney’s office called Norton about Polito’s arrest, he said he was “very surprised.”
“As a priest, my job is to help and not to hurt people,” Norton said. “And that was what was in my mind at the time when I asked the DA not to proceed.”
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