[1][2] In 2005, Corapi was awarded US$2.7 million for his role as a whistleblower in a qui tam False Claims Act lawsuit against Redding Medical Center in California.
He later operated his own bookkeeping firm for about a year before moving to Los Angeles, California in 1978, where he became a real estate agent.
Corapi has stated that he was making a six-figure income in condominium conversions in the early 1980s; he lived in a waterfront home in Oxnard, California, and owned a Ferrari 308 GTS and a 60-foot yacht.
[citation needed] He lived with his mother for some time and returned to the practice of the Catholic faith after a conversion experience on June 24, 1984, making his first confession in several years.
[8]: 58–59 He joined the missionary community the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity and on May 26, 1990, was ordained a deacon by René Henry Gracida, Bishop of Corpus Christi, Texas.
Corapi says that Mother Teresa of Calcutta stood behind him at his ordination, and that he saw a vision of the Virgin Mary smelling lilacs on that day.
In 2008, Corapi curtailed his public appearances for reasons of health, but continued to produce audio and video programs from his studio in Montana.
On August 15, 2009, Corapi made his first public appearance in over a year in Buffalo, New York for his "Lord and Giver of Life" conference at HSBC Arena.
[12] In 2005 the United States Department of Justice reached a settlement with four cardiologists and Tenet Healthcare, the owner of Redding Hospital, in part due to the investigation following Corapi's initial complaint.
Moon, the target of Corapi's lawsuit, paid US$1.4 million and agreed never to perform cardiology procedures or surgeries on Medicare, Medi-Cal or Tricare patients.
In March 2011, Bishop William Mulvey of Corpus Christi, Texas, instructed the SOLT religious community to appoint two independent priests to investigate allegations by a former employee that Corapi had been in a relationship with her and was a drug addict.
Its work was hampered by Corapi's refusal to release witnesses from non-disclosure agreements and the breach of contract lawsuit he filed against the principal accuser.
On a new website, titled "The Black Sheep Dog", Corapi wrote: There are certain persons in authority in the Church that want me gone, and I shall be gone...They can't prove I'm guilty of the things alleged because I'm not, and they can't prove I'm innocent because that is simply illogical and impossible...My canon lawyer and my civil lawyers have concluded that I cannot receive a fair and just hearing under the Church's present process.
The Church will conclude that I am not cooperating with the process because I refuse to give up all of my civil and human rights in order to hold harmless anyone who chooses to say defamatory and actionable things against me with no downside to them.
[4]On July 5, 2011, Sheehan, Corapi's religious superior in the Society of Our Lady of the Trinity, released a press statement accusing Corapi of drug and alcohol abuse, "sexting", having an affair with a former prostitute, and violating his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of the society by owning more than $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats.
"[17] On July 7, 2011, Corapi announced that he would not obey Sheehan's order to relocate from Montana and take up residence in a house of the society.
According to a Catholic News Service report, he said he would not return to the order, and that he had resigned from the priesthood on June 17, twenty-two days after his 20th anniversary of priestly ordination (May 26, 1991).