The State - News from July 9, 1986

The purchasing agent of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco pleaded guilty to defrauding a computer company of $100,000 by “laundering” computers through a church office, prosecutors said. John Lynch, in a plea bargain, will be sentenced in Superior Court on Aug. 4 to three years probation, 500 hours of community service and fined $500, prosecutors said. Lynch admitted that he bought 2,500 Apple computers under a church discount and passed all but 450 of them along to a retail computer outlet, where they were sold at regular prices, prosecutors said. Computer store operator Steven Mathew David, who operates several Bay Area computer outlets, faces a preliminary hearing in the case Thursday. Each of the computers was purchased at $200 below wholesale cost under an Apple discount allowed to nonprofit educational organizations, prosecutors said. Lynch is on leave from his archdiocese post.