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A man presenting himself as an Orthodox monk — and who had taken a “vow of poverty” — is accused of manipulating the COVID relief grant system to make off with nearly $3.6 million, which the feds say he spent on luxe items like $40,000 in Swiss watches.

“Today, we arrested a purported Orthodox Christian monk and his attorney for misdirecting millions of dollars in federal emergency assistance from businesses struggling to survive, to line their own pockets for their own personal enrichment,” said Joseph Bonavolonta, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office. “We believe they clearly knew that what they were doing was wrong, but they did it anyway.”

Brian Andrew Bushell, 47, and attorney Tracey M.A. Stockton, 64, were arrested at their home, the Annunciation House, in Marblehead and appeared in federal court in Boston Thursday on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and unlawful monetary transactions.

Bushell presented himself as “Father” and “Rev. Fr.” Bushell or Andrew — which appears to be his preferred name — and has said that he trained at a monastery on Mount Athos in Greece, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case.

Publications like the Financial Times and the Boston Globe have glowing profiles reiterating his stories of trading a life of business consulting for, first, war correspondence for The Economist and then back to business where he claimed he managed an investment fund of more than $2 billion before throwing himself headlong into the ecclesiastical life.

But to those actually part of the Orthox churches operating in the area, he’s a total unknown.

A representative of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America told the AP that Bushell is not a priest or a monk in their church, and a representative of the Orthodox Church in America’s New England Diocese also said Bushell has no affiliation with their church.

“He’s not affiliated with the Diocese in New England,” Father John Kreta, the chancellor of the New England Diocese, told the Herald. “I have never met him and had never heard the name before.”

As the FT story tells, Bushell “joined a monastery on Athos, and learned how to separate sea salt from seawater” and had learned brewing from European monastic orders. It’s the perfect background for the organizations he started on Marblehead with purported Orthodox connections: in addition to the couple’s home — which the feds described as “a purported residence for clergy — he ran the “monastic brewery” Marblehead Brewing Co. and the Marblehead Salt Co., a craft saltern.

Then there’s the St. Paul’s Foundation, a charitable organization of sorts; and the Shrine of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Patron of Sailors, Brewers & Repentant Thieves.

None of these had any affiliation to the Orthodox Church in America, Kreta said.

These various organizations are at the heart of the federal allegations against the Marblehead couple. When the pandemic rolled around, the feds say, the couple started filing false applications for the various relief funds, eventually raking up nearly $3.6 million from around April 2020 to August 2022.

“Upon receiving (Economic Injury Disaster Loans) and (Paycheck Protection Program) funds, Bushell and Stockton used those funds on expenses that would not have been permitted under either program, even had the funds been obtained lawfully,” the U.S. Attorney’s office wrote in a brief on the allegations.

An email to a representative of The Economist seeking information on any relationship past or present to Bushell was not returned by press time.

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