Catholic News Agency
06 February 2013
By Carl Bunderson
Newark, N.J., Feb 6, 2013 / 02:02 am (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Newark affirmed its decision to allow a priest accused of abusing a minor to remain in ministry, stressing that they are complying with authorities and prohibiting any interaction alone with children.
“We have not received any complaints from the prosecutor’s office…since Father has been back in ministry,” said Jim Goodness, the archdiocesan communications director.
“We’re doing exactly what we’re supposed to be doing,” he told CNA on Feb. 5.
On Nov. 21, the Catholic Advocate – the archdiocesan newspaper – announced that Father Michael Fugee had been appointed co-director of the office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests. He had been, and remains, director of the Office of the Propagation of the Faith. Both are positions at the Newark chancery.
On Feb. 3, the Star-Ledger ran a story about the appointment, calling it a “high-profile position.”
Goodness contested that characterization, saying, “it certainly is not a prestigious assignment…Father simply has to send out emails and notices to the priests in the diocese talking about this or that seminar or workshop if they want to take advantage of it, that’s it.”
In 2001, Fr. Fugee was charged with criminal sexual contact and endangering a child’s welfare.
The priest told police he had twice groped a teenage boy’s crotch while they were wrestling in the presence of the boy’s family members. One instance took place while he was on vacation with the boy’s family in Virginia in 2000, he said, and the other was about a year prior to that.
During his 2003 trial, Fr. Fugee protested that his confession to the police was false and that he had lied. The jury convicted him of aggravated sexual contact.
Fr. Fugee appealed the decision, and in 2006, an appellate court reversed his conviction, saying that the trial court had given inadequate guidance to the jury. Goodness said that “there was no basis for those original verdicts.”
The priest was supposed to go on trial again, but he came to an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor and the Archdiocese of Newark’s vicar general requiring him to undergo two years of “sex-offender specific counseling/therapy.”
That 2007 agreement allowed Fr. Fugee to remain in ministry so long as “he shall not have any unsupervised contact with or any duties that call for the supervision/ministry of any child or children under the age of 18…as long as he is a priest and/or employed/assigned within the Roman Catholic Church.”
In 2009, after Fr. Fugee completed his sex-offender counseling, the prosecutors dismissed the case against him.
“We have not received any complaints from the prosecutor’s office, who gave us the original memorandum since Father has been back in ministry. He does not have unsupervised contact with children or youth, that’s very clear,” Goodness said.
“This particular assignment, it’s within the office, so there’s really no exposure at that point,” he explained.
“(W)e are doing exactly what the authorities said we could do,” he stressed. “They made the suggestion that return to ministry could be on a certain basis, and we followed those through.”
He added that the diocese is “extremely puzzled” about the criticism and doesn’t know “what to do any further than what we are doing to comply.”
Goodness pointed out that the Newark archdiocese has cooperated with authorities and that this “isn’t a situation in which we have tried to get anything by anybody or slip anything under the rug.”
He said the review board of the archdiocese had reviewed Fr. Fugee’s case, and “agreed that Father could…return to ministry under those criteria.”
“Also, it’s important to know that the entire case was forwarded to Rome,” he said. “Rome reviewed everything, and said everything was done appropriately, and they were comfortable with Father returning.”
Fr. Fugee, having completed his therapy, is “allowed to say Mass anywhere in the diocese,” Goodness continued.
“He’s just not supposed to be in an unsupervised setting with children. But saying Mass on Sunday in a parish, there are a lot of adults around.”
“He’s not doing religious education classes, he’s not going to schools, he’s not involved with…youth ministry or anything like that,” he explained. “But all the other things in a parish setting are entirely possible, because you’re there as the entire community, so that there is always the presence of other people.”
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Herald News: A pledge to protect children ignored
NorthJersey.com (New Jersey)
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Herald News
IN THE wake of widespread sexual scandals involving its clergy, U.S. Catholic bishops established a series of procedures at a 2002 bishops’ conference in Dallas: The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. Newark Archbishop John J. Myers should reread it.
As reported this week, the Rev. Michael Fugee, a former Wyckoff assistant pastor who admitted fondling a 13-year-old boy in 2001, is still serving as a cleric.
Fugee has been the director of the archdiocese’s Office of the Propagation of the Faith, which raises funds for missionary work. In October, Fugee was also named the co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests, an office providing educational material to clerics.
Fugee was convicted by a Bergen County jury on a count of sexual contact for groping the boy. But the verdict was overturned by an appellate panel because it found Fugee’s statement to police questioning his sexual orientation should not have been admitted as evidence. Fugee said at trial that he playfully wrestled with the boy, but had given a statement to police earlier in which he admitted grabbing the boy’s crotch to satisfy an urge.
Years later, an archdiocesan review board determined Fugee could be returned to ministry but with no contact with children. This is a clear violation of the so-called Dallas Charter. The charter states that “for even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor — whenever it occurred — which is admitted or established after an appropriate process in accord with canon law, the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state.”
The archdiocese may want to play word games — playfully wrestling with a minor versus grabbing the boy’s crotch. The criminal conviction was overturned, but Fugee’s admitted conduct — criminal or not — was not acceptable behavior. Rather than err on the side of respect for victims, the archdiocese put the needs of clergy ahead of the people it serves.
Fugee should not be in active ministry. One strike and you’re out. Those are the rules agreed upon by the bishops themselves. Yet the archdiocese placed Fugee in 2009 at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark as a chaplain. When hospital administrators found out, Fugee was removed. Church officials had notified the head of chaplains at the hospital about Fugee’s history, but not administrators. Again, this is a pattern that seems to never stop.
The bishops in 2011 reaffirmed the words of Pope John Paul II in a revision of the charter: “There is no place in the priesthood or religious life for those who would harm the young.”
That includes Newark.
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Michael Fugee, Priest Who Once Admitted To Touching Boy, Lands Key Job In Newark Archdiocese
The Rev. Michael Fugee in 2003 after a jury found him guilty of aggravated criminal sexual contact.
In a move branded “breathtaking arrogance” by a watchdog group, the Archdiocese of Newark has appointed a priest — who once confessed to touching an underage boy — to a key job, the Star-Ledger reports.
The Rev. Michael Fugee has been named co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests, a post that does not involve contact with children, as mandated by a court agreement, according to the Star-Ledger.
Jim Goodness, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told the paper the job was administrative. He also expressed confidence in Fugee.
Visit the Star-Ledger for more details on the story.
In 2003 Fugee was convicted of aggravated criminal sexual contact after he told police he intentionally touched a 14-year-old boy’s crotch during wrestling sessions at the boy’s home, the New York Times reported. In court, Fugee later said he made the admission because he got impatient.
According to NPR, Fugee received five years’ probation, but an appellate court overturned the verdict three years later, deciding that the trial judge instructed the jury incorrectly. The archdiocese agreed to prevent Fugee’s contact with children instead of going through another trial.
Since then, Fugee has continued to “celebrate” mass at churches around New Jersey, the Star-Ledger reports. He also has held a fundraising post for missionary work the last several years, according to the Associated Press.
Another report of alleged oversight in a clergy sex-abuse case emerged in Los Angeles this week. A now-retired priest, who once told a psychologist he had “sexual relations” with an underaged girl, continued to serve as a priest for years and was hired by the Los Angeles Unified School District for an outreach program.
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Archdiocese removes priest from hospital in Newark after learning of molestation history
NJ.com
Published: Friday, October 16, 2009, 5:00 AM Updated: Friday, October 16, 2009, 8:45 AM
By Jeff Diamant/The Star-Ledger
NEWARK — The Newark Archdiocese removed a priest as chaplain at Saint Michael’s Medical Center in Newark this week after hospital officials learned of his history in a criminal molestation case involving a minor and requested his removal.The Rev. Michael Fugee, who began working at the hospital Sept. 8, admitted to Bergen County investigators in 2001 that he had molested a boy in Wyckoff. He later recanted the statement, saying he felt pressured by investigators at the time to make an admission.
A jury convicted him in 2003 of criminal sexual contact, but that conviction was eventually overturned by an Appellate Court in 2006, for reasons unrelated to his admission.
Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli, rather than re-try the case after the Appellate ruling, let Fugee enter a “pre-trial intervention” program that ultimately led to the case’s dismissal three months ago. According to terms of a legal agreement with the prosecutor’s office, however, Fugee is forbidden from again ministering to minors or having unsupervised access to them as a priest.
Saint Michael’s officials learned about Fugee’s history earlier this week after The Star-Ledger asked about his appointment, a spokesperson for the hospital said.
“The priest in question was assigned by the Archdiocese of Newark….,” hospital officials said in a prepared statement. “Based on new information, Saint Michael’s has asked the archdiocese to remove the priest. The archdiocese has done so, effective immediately.”
A spokesman for the Archdiocese, James Goodness, acknowledged that church authorities removed Fugee from the hospital job on Wednesday. He conceded that the Archdiocese had never informed hospital officials about Fugee’s history, because it believed it was sufficient to notify the head of the chaplain’s unit, a priest who works for the Archdiocese.
Goodness said the archdiocese will notify hospital staff about similar situations in the future.
Meanwhile, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers is evaluating where Fugee’s next job will be, Goodness said.
A Seton Hall graduate, Fugee was ordained in 1994 and worked three years as a priest at St. Rose of Lima Church in Millburn before joining St. Elizabeth’s Church in Wyckoff in December 1997.
He was arrested eight years ago following allegations by a 14-year-old boy that he groped the boy’s genitals, through clothes. Fugee had been supporting and counseling the boy’s mother during a marital separation.
At his 2003 trial, which occurred the year after the clergy sex scandal gained national attention, the boy testified that Fugee groped him several times while wrestling, when the boy’s relatives were present; and once when the boy, his mother and Fugee were vacationing in a Virginia hotel.
During the trial, Fugee testified he had merely been wrestling with the boy recreationally. But a detective read a transcript of Fugee’s interview with interrogators from two years earlier, telling jurors the priest had told police he was torn over his sexual identity, and had groped the boy’s crotch to satisfy an urge, according to Bergen Record coverage of the trial.
The jury, while convicting Fugee of aggravated criminal sexual contact, acquitted him of endangering the welfare of a minor.
He successfully appealed the conviction. Appellate judges ruled that part of Fugee’s statement to police, in which he said he was attracted to males, should not have been admitted as testimony because it had a prejudical effect on his case.
“The admission of this statement injected into this case the specter of a jury deciding defendants’ guilt on the unfounded association between homosexuality and pedophilia,” the court wrote.
The Appellate Court also ruled that the trial judge’s instructions on the law — whether Fugee was truly a supervisory figure in the boy’s life, as the statute required for a conviction — were vague.
Related topics: newark, wyckoff
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No Jailing for Priest in Fondling of Boy
NorthJersey.com
06 September 2013
By Raghuram Vadarev vadarevu@northjersey.com
A Wyckoff priest convicted this year of groping a teenage boy will not spend any time in jail.
Instead, Superior Court Judge Charles J. Walsh sentenced the Rev. Michael Fugee on Friday to community supervision, or parole, for the rest of his life and required him to register as a sex offender wherever he lives.
Fugee’s actions represent “a serious breach of trust” in the priesthood, Walsh said, as Fugee’s supporters from St. Elizabeth R.C. Church looked on.
Across the courtroom sat an equal number of people supporting the 13-year-old victim. After the hearing, they said they were satisfied.
Fugee’s attorney, Brian Neary, said his client maintains his innocence and would appeal.
Fugee, 43, who has been on administrative leave from the church since his arrest in March 2001, could have been sentenced to serve a year in prison.
During the hearing, Neary argued that Fugee’s life would be in danger if he were sent to prison, referring to last month’s prison killing of defrocked priest John Geoghan in Massachusetts.
Bergen County Assistant Prosecutor Demetra Maurice, who had wanted Fugee to serve a year in jail, objected to Neary’s argument.
“He should not be treated different than other sex offenders,” she said. “He should not be afforded special treatment … He needs to be made an example of. He needs to sit in a cell to think about the pain he inflicted.”
Walsh said he agreed that Fugee faced a “significant and greater jeopardy than the larger prison population,” but he did not base his sentencing decision on that belief.
Afterward, Maurice said, “The Department of Corrections is prepared to handle and keep safe its inmates regardless of the nature of their crime.”
Fugee had testified during the trial that he was simply wrestling in a playful manner with the boy. But the jury of five men and seven women gave more weight to a statement Fugee gave to police two years ago in which he said he grabbed the boy’s crotch to satisfy an urge.
The four-day trial was packed with emotional testimony. The boy said he felt “used” by the priest and feared coming forward with the charges. Several parishioners testified that they loved Fugee and did not believe the charges, despite the statement he gave to police.
Fugee told jurors he admitted the crime at Wyckoff police headquarters two years ago because he was intimidated by investigators.
“I lied in this instance to say what was expected of me, so then I could go home,” he testified.
But the police interview proved too incriminating for the defense to overcome. Fugee said during the interview that he was struggling with his sexual identity and “was infatuated with crotches,” Detective John Haviland of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office testified.
During the trial, the detective read the jury a transcript of the interview, in which Fugee said his actions were intentional, that he was responding to an urge, and that he knew it was wrong.
The jury convicted him of aggravated criminal sexual contact, a third-degree crime. Because he is a first-time offender, Fugee was expected to receive a more lenient sentence, possibly probation.
Walsh on Friday also sentenced Fugee to perform 500 hours of community service, to undergo psychological counseling, to serve five years of probation, and to submit a DNA sample.
Fugee’s actions represented a “serious breach of trust” in the priesthood, Walsh said, adding that the full impact of his actions on the community and the victim and his family would not be known for years.
E-mail: vadarevu@northjersey.com