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They called him the Polka Padre. Later, they called him the Polka Predator.

The Rev. Robert Kapoun performed across the Twin Cities and surrounding areas as the Polka Padre for decades.

For decades, the Rev. Robert Kapoun charmed parishioners with his accordion at "polka masses" across Minnesota. Privately, he took young boys to saunas, rectories and a secluded cabin in Cold Spring and sexually assaulted them, according to court testimony. Parents complained but leaders at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis did little to stop him.

Kapoun remained in ministry until 1996, the year a lawsuit brought by Dale Scheffler, one of his victims, went to trial. It was the biggest clergy sex abuse case in Minnesota history. Over 10 days in a packed Hennepin County courtroom, jurors watched in shock as a parade of top church leaders defended and minimized their inaction. Former Archbishop John Roach claimed memory loss, while Kapoun, then 57, claimed that God had cured him of his sexual interest in young boys.

The jury awarded a $1 million verdict. Scheffler broke down sobbing.

It was a short-lived victory. An appellate court overturned the verdict the following year due to the statute of limitations. All Scheffler got was a bill from the archdiocese for its legal expenses.

An MPR News investigation found that a year after the trial, the archdiocese allowed Kapoun to retire early and sent him funds beyond his pension pay that totaled about $160,000 by 2012. The money was classified as "medical retirement." Those retirement payments — $957.50 every month — came in addition to regular pension checks of $1,510.50.
Full investigation coverage

Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

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Madeleine Baran
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In an interview recently with MPR News, Kapoun dismissed questions about money. The priest said that he rarely sees anyone from the archdiocese and that he suffers from migraines and spinal pain. He splits his time between his half-million dollar lakefront property in Cold Spring and a second home in Florida. "I'm very happy," said Kapoun, 74.

A spokesperson for the archdiocese declined to make anyone available to discuss Kapoun.

Kapoun is one of several accused priests who've received payments in addition to regular pension checks, according to two former top church officials.

• Full coverage: Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Former archdiocese accounting director Scott Domeier said in a recent interview with MPR News that the payments to problem priests total $200,000 to $250,000 a year.

Canon lawyer Jennifer Haselberger found several of the payments during an audit in February 2012. She expressed her disapproval to Archbishop John Nienstedt, who told her he didn't know about the arrangements. Haselberger persuaded Nienstedt to stop the payments to Kapoun and several others. But she said similar payments to other priests continued, based on her review of the records before she resigned in April.
Scott Domeier
Scott Domeier is the former accounting director for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. (MPR photo/Tom Scheck)

Domeier said the money came from a "clergy support fund" controlled by a handful of top officials. He said Nienstedt authorized the spending but did not review each check.

Top church officials offered several reasons for the payments, said Domeier and Haselberger.

Haselberger said that senior leaders in the chancery told her the money, in part, was needed so priests could hire good attorneys. "They thought if they weren't well represented, they would be apt to provide testimony in courts or depositions that would implicate the archdiocese," she said.

Domeier said the archdiocese provided the extra payments to make sure priests who were removed from ministry for sexual abuse didn't suffer financially. "The thought process is, ‘Once a priest, always a priest,'" he said.
"You are a priest forever / according to the order of Melchizedek."
Hebrews 7:17

Domeier is serving a three-year prison sentence for theft and tax evasion.

The archdiocese, in a statement on Oct. 1, acknowledged paying abusive priests. "To help ensure that the offending priest does not re-offend, he must have financial, therapeutic and spiritual support," it said. "The Archdiocese has sought to provide that support, where necessary."
Extra payments

New parish priests receive a starting salary of $30,398. At age 70, they begin to collect monthly pension benefits. The maximum pension is $1,940 a month for priests with at least 40 years of service, said Haselberger.

A priest cannot retire before age 70 unless the archbishop classifies him as disabled. The archbishop has discretion to decide what counts as a disability, Haselberger said.

Kapoun received $2,468 a month, according to Haselberger, who saw the documents as part of an audit. "What we were providing to Kapoun was in excess of what we were providing to those many priests who have done nothing but well by the faithful of this archdiocese," Haselberger said.
Jennifer Haselberger
Jennifer Haselberger is the former top canon lawyer for the archdiocese. She resigned in April after her superiors refused to take action on problem priests, and has since made it her mission to alert the public about priest misconduct and leaders' complicity within the archdiocese. (MPR Photo/Jennifer Simonson)

After she found the payments, Haselberger stopped donating money to the archdiocese's annual Catholic Services Appeal.

"I think people contribute because they think their money is going toward building up the church of God and all of the great things that come from that," she said. "I don't see how giving $900 a month to Kapoun builds up the church of God."

Dioceses rarely release detailed financial information, so it's difficult to know how the payments by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis compare to practices elsewhere.

However, Thomas Doyle, a leading national expert on clergy sexual abuse, said he's never heard of a diocese providing additional monthly payments to abusive clerics who do not leave the priesthood."This whole thing is bit unusual," he said.

Doyle said bishops will often continue to pay priests who've been suspended for allegations of abuse, but those payments end when the allegations are confirmed.

The Rev. Robert Kapoun now lives in Cold Spring, Minn., about 18 miles southwest of St. Cloud. The lakefront property he occupies more than half the year was once owned by his parents — and is allegedly the scene of one of Kapoun's many instances of abuse against minors under his ministerial care in the 1970s and '80s. (MPR Photo/Jeffrey Thompson)