The Boston priest who was busted for stalking Conan O’Brien followed the “Late Night” star all over
the country – and even popped up in Italy in search of his obsession, police sources said.
The Rev. David Ajemian, 46 – who claims to have once lived in the same Upper West Side building as the
star – turned up in Italy while O’Brien was on a trip there.
He then sent a postcard from Italy to the Massachusetts-born comedian – bearing a postmark from the
same town O’Brien had just visited, law-enforcement sources said.
That ominous incident – as well as another when the priest showed up in California – sent the
investigation into overdrive.
Authorities began monitoring the troubled cleric’s contact with the former “SNL” writer more closely,
sources said.
And the Archdiocese of Boston assigned two people to help the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office
with the investigation, a source said.
Ajemian – who in one letter said he had attended the tony Trinity School on the Upper West Side – was
arrested last Friday while he was in line at 30 Rockefeller Plaza to see a taping of “Late Night with
Conan O’Brien.”
He was wearing his collar when arrested.
Apparently, he had a message to tell O’Brien that he believed only the TV star would understand,
police sources said.
Cops knew Ajemian would be there last Friday because he allegedly wrote a letter to O’Brien stating
that he’d see him then.
The priest was charged with stalking in the fourth degree, and two counts of aggravated harassment in
the second degree.
In several of the letters he wrote to O’Brien, which were released in court papers, Ajemian reveals
his fixation not only with the comedian, but with hot-tempered tennis great John McEnroe.
The self-proclaimed “priest- stalker” wrote in one letter that he went to Trinity with McEnroe,
according to the court papers.
“John McEnroe assaulted me once in the seventh grade when I wouldn’t give up my seat to him,” he wrote
O’Brien on Feb. 20, according to the criminal complaint.
He then wrote in an another letter that he “once went after my childhood nemesis John McEnroe, too,
and am still waiting for his confession as well.”
Kay McEnroe, the retired tennis pro’s mother, said her son did go to the private school, but she
doesn’t remember Ajemian and is unaware of anyone stalking John.
“Obviously, he deserved to be pushed,” she joked on hearing the contents of Ajemian’s letter. “The
guy’s a wacko.”
Ajemian began sending O’Brien the strange communiqués about 14 months ago, both to his home and his
office.
The priest never made any attempt to conceal his identity, and seem puzzled when he was arrested for
stalking, police sources said.
Ajemian also allegedly filled the NBC message boards with strange, rambling posts under the name
“Padre 009,” including the one in which he claimed to have lived in the same building as O’Brien.
“My brother is terrified that I may ‘do something’ at the taping,” he wrote on Valentine’s Day.
“When I asked him for some memories of our old apt. bldg (now Conan’s) he said – LEAVE ME OUTA
THIS!!!”
One moderator, called LateNightGoddess, wrote yesterday, “He used to post .ñ.ñ. on this message board
and talk about writing to/stalking Conan. It even got to the point where we (the [moderators] on the
board) reported him to NBC security.”
In another lengthy message from April, written under the letterhead of St. Patrick Parish in Stoneham,
Mass., Ajemian told O’Brien, “I’m not [Virginia Tech killer] Seung-Cho, even if I did once look out on
that dark and dreaded doorway on West 72nd Street.”
Calls to Ajemian’s family were not returned yesterday.
The disgraced priest is due in Manhattan Criminal Court today for a hearing regarding the results of a
court-ordered psychiatric exam, said his lawyer, Eric Seiff.
The flame-haired comic and the troubled cleric both attended Harvard in the 1980s, but it’s unclear if
they ever met at the Ivy league school.
The two have spoken at least once. They met at the opening of a church homeless shelter in Lawrence,
Mass., in September 2006 – around the time the letters started coming.
Ajemian also sent letters to NBC security bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t get into the show.
He ranted to O’Brien, “Is this how you treat your most dangerous fan??? You owe me big time, pal,”
according to the criminal complaint.
In a letter to NBC security, he wrote, “I should have known that the ties I have to Conan through his
parents and hometown church, his alma mater and even his very home mean nothing in a world like ours.”
At one point, Ajemian was working at St. Mary of the Assumption, a church in O’Brien’s hometown of
Brookline, Mass., a priest at the church confirmed to The Post.
O’Brien’s parents live less than a mile from St. Mary’s. The star’s mother declined to comment on
whether she knew Ajemian.
The cleric’s father, Robert Ajemian, was a celebrated journalist during the 1950s through the 1990s,
with stints as a bureau chief Time magazine and an editor at Life, according to Who’s Who In America.
Ajemian’s last post as a priest was at St. Patrick, where he worked from 2005 to June 2007.
A Boston Archdiocese spokesman said that he was ordained in 2001 and that he was unassigned to a
church at the time of his arrest.
“As a result of his arrest, the archdiocese has placed Father Ajemian on leave and he is no longer
able to exercise public ministry,” according to a statement released from the Boston Archdiocese.
“The archdiocese has cooperated and continues to cooperate fully with New York authorities on this
matter. Further, during this difficult time, the archdiocese will offer pastoral support to all
parties affected.”
It was unclear why Ajemian left St. Patrick Parish, and the archdiocese did not respond to a request
for information on his removal.
In the Official Catholic Directory for 2004, David J. Ajemian is listed as being on “health leave.”
When Ajemian was appointed at St. Patrick, he told the local paper that he grew up in New York and
Connecticut in a “not terribly religious family.”
He said he worked as a telemarketer and aid for people with disabilities before finding his vocation
at the age of 30.
“The Lord touched my heart,” he told the Stoneham Independent. “I felt in a personal way the truth of
Jesus as God.”
A former parishioner from St. Patrick said the congregation is reeling from the arrest of the priest.
“We are as surprised in the parish as anyone else would be,” said the man, who declined to give his
name. “This just jumped out of the TV at us, and there he was.”
He described Ajemian as a pleasant man with a good sense of humor, but said it seemed like he was
struggling with some problems.
“He had a look that something was really bothering him, something that he couldn’t quite solve,” the
man said.
“Unfortunately, as time went by, I don’t think he got the attention he deserved to try to help him.
When you would talk to him afterwards, you could tell he was lonely in some of the instances.”
Still, he said, most of the parish was fond of Ajemian.
“There are many people who are disturbed and in tears,” he said.
He said that they often talked about old movies – Ajemian’s passion – and that the cleric loved
“Casablanca” in particular.
“He’d quote lines. He could tell you what the guy was wearing in a scene,” the man recalled.
As for Ajemian’s obsession with O’Brien, “He never talked about anything like that at all.”
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano and Larry Celona