The Journal Star
17 September 2013
CHICAGO —
A 79-year-old Roman Catholic priest who was accused of kissing and grabbing a man at Chicago’s Midway Airport has been found not guilty of criminal sexual abuse by a Cook County judge.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Judge Nicholas Ford acquitted the Rev. Bede R. Jagoe on Monday following a brief trial.
Jagoe was charged after a man told police the priest inappropriately touched him in the airport’s chapel in December 2011 and kissed him and grabbed him in an elevator.
The judge said a number of factors created reasonable doubt, including the fact that the man didn’t report the incident to police until after he got to his Kansas City home even though he had 40 minutes between the time of the alleged incident and his flight.
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Priest accused of abuse at Midway Airport is acquitted
The Chicago Tribune
5:58 p.m. CDT, September 17, 2013
A Cook County judge acquitted a 79-year-old Roman Catholic priest of sexually abusing a traveler who stopped to worship at the chapel inside Midway Airport before boarding a flight to Kansas City.
According to the priest’s attorney Irv Miller, the Rev. Bede Jagoe arrived at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Monday in an ambulance and watched from a gurney as his accuser testified that the priest touched him inappropriately and tried to kiss him in an elevator back in December 2011.
Judge Nicholas Ford said surveillance video didn’t corroborate the accuser’s testimony, Miller said.
Since the alleged incident in December 2011, Jagoe suffered several strokes, said Bill Skowronski, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Dominican Friars Central Province, who added that the province was pleased the priest lived long enough to see his name cleared in court.
Ordained in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1960, Jagoe served the first 23 years of his clerical career as a missionary in Nigeria. He served in a variety of leadership roles around the Midwest before becoming a chaplain for the Chicago Airports Catholic Chaplaincy in May 2005.
“Fr. Jagoe celebrated Mass up to five days a week as part of his ministry at Midway airport and often stayed longer to speak to attendants afterwards despite being semi-retired,” Skowronski said.
Prosecutors, who charged Jagoe with criminal sexual abuse and aggravated battery in a public place, said the priest and a traveler were in an airport elevator leaving the chapel when Jagoe told the man he was attracted to him. The priest tried to kiss him on the mouth, then “grabbed (the victim’s) testicles,” prosecutors said. The man and his wife testified Monday that he boarded his flight and, after returning home, told his wife who then called Chicago police.
Within hours of the verdict, Dominican Prior Provincial Charles E. Bouchard reinstated Jagoe as a “priest in good standing,” Skowronski said.
“We take allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously,” Bouchard said in a statement. “But there are instances of false or unsubstantiated claims. We’re glad that in this case, Fr. Jagoe’s name was cleared by the court.”
mbrachear@tribune.com | Twitter: @TribSeeker
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Priest not guilty in Midway Airport sex-abuse case
The ChicagoSun-Times.com
16 September 2013
BY MITCH DUDEK AND STEFANO ESPOSITO Staff Reporters
A 79-year-old Roman Catholic priest was found not guilty Monday of inappropriately touching and kissing a traveling businessman from Kansas City who’d stopped into a chapel at Midway Airport to grieve the death of a friend during a layover.
The Rev. Bede R. Jagoe was accused of touching the man’s groin with a finger in the interfaith chapel at Midway and kissing the man and grabbing his groin in an elevator minutes later on Dec. 11, 2011.
Judge Nicholas Ford found Jagoe, who attended his one-day bench trial in a gurney due to ill health, not guilty of criminal sexual abuse and aggravated battery on the public way.
The 61-year-old Kansas City man testified that Jagoe poked him in the groin with a finger as the two chatted in the second-floor chapel after mass, an act he thought, initially, was accidental.
Several minutes later, when the men were alone in an elevator, Jagoe “came up to me and grabbed my groin . . . and kissed me on the mouth,” he said. “He grabbed me very hard. I had a lot of pain for a couple of days.”
Ford said several factors that cast reasonable doubt on the story lead him to rule not guilty.
Chief among them was the fact that the accuser did not report the incident to any of the numerous law enforcement agents who work at Midway in the approximately 40 minutes between when it was alleged to have occurred and when he boarded a flight home.
The man’s wife notified Chicago police two and half hours later when her husband broke down crying and told her the story in their Kansas City home, the wife testified.
Assistant State’s Attorney Tami Strickman said the man delayed notifying authorities because he was in shock and wasn’t positive what had occurred was illegal.
The judge also questioned why surveillance video aired in court showed the men hugging and briefly holding hands in the chapel after the priest allegedly touched his groin. Video footage also showed the man chatting with Jagoe and following him into an elevator after leaving the chapel.
In making his decision, the judge also pointed to testimony from the man about being kissed by the priest that contradicted statements he made to police indicating the priest “attempted” to kiss him.
Jagoe, a priest who serves in the order of Dominican Friars, declined to comment after the trial.
Rev. Charles E. Bouchard, Prior Provincial of the Dominican Friars Central Province in Chicago, said in a statement issued after the verdict: “We take allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously, but there are instances of false or unsubstantiated claims. We’re glad that in this case Father Jagoe’s name was cleared by the court. There was a rush to judgement at the time, that is understandable but unfair in this case as the court found him to be not guilty.”
Bill Skowronski, a spokesman for the Dominican Friars Central Province, said at the time of the allegations, Jagoe was retired and assigned to limited service at Midway Airport. Jagoe, who was ordained in 1960, was removed from ministry immediately when charges were filed and stripped of his rites to celebrate sacrament any where in the Order, per the Order’s national policy.
In the wake of the not guilty ruling, “he is reinstated as a priest in good standing,” Skowronski said.
Contributing: Francine Knowles
“Ford said several factors that cast reasonable doubt on the story lead him to rule not guilty.
“Chief among them was the fact that the accuser did not report the incident to any of the numerous law enforcement agents who work at Midway in the approximately 40 minutes between when it was alleged to have occurred and when he boarded a flight home.
“The man’s wife notified Chicago police two and half hours later when her husband broke down crying and told her the story in their Kansas City home, the wife testified.”
I have trouble with the judge’s logic on this point. I don’t know about the rest of the factors which led her to acquit, but on this it does not in the least surprise me that the man didn’t report the priest immediately because (1) he, the complainant, was no doubt in a state of shock, and (2) he probably was anxious to get out of there and get home and was perhaps afraid he would have missed his flight had he reported on the spot.