Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder. A Las Vegas priest is being sought by police as a suspect in a physical assault on a woman. Father George Chaanine has also been suspended by the diocese pending an investigation.
Police said a church employee accused Chaanine of striking her Friday afternoon inside a building on the church’s campus on the 3000 block of Alta Drive, near Rancho Drive.
Police on Saturday continued their search for the priest, who was considered a “person of interest” in the incident.
Chaanine owns a gun and could be armed and dangerous, police said.
“We want to talk with him, to hear his side of the story,” Ted Moody, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Investigative Services Division, said Saturday.
Moody didn’t speculate on a possible motive for the incident and said the case still was under investigation.
“There was some kind of personal contact between the two people. It’s reported to be a fight,” he said.
Some news reports said the woman claimed that Chaanine starting beating her after she rebuffed a sexual advance. As always, these are accusations and rumors at this point so take it with a grain of salt.
