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  Judge:former Priest Still Threat to Minors

Myfoxchicago.com
September 17, 2009

A northwest Indiana man will not be released from jail after being arrested on charges of attempting to have sex with a 15-year-old teen, the Post-Tribune is reporting.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Rodovich filed the decision Wednesday in federal court in Hammond, saying in his order that Wayne E. Wigglesworth, 68, had been shown to have previous contact with a 9-year-old boy after being told by Valparaiso police to stop.

Wigglesworth was arrested in August after police pulled his car over in Chicago. The 15-year-old boy who was in the passenger seat told police he had met Wigglesworth on TeenChat.com and that they exchanged phone numbers, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Wigglesworth, who had told the teen he was 43, eventually asked to meet the teen so they could perform oral sex on each other, according to the affidavit.

Wigglesworth had been held without bond pending Rodovich's ruling.

The government presented evidence that Wigglesworth, who was an ordained Catholic priest in Baltimore from 1967 to 1982, met a 9-year-old boy at his wife's nursing home in Valparaiso in February.

Wigglesworth then called the boy two times before the boy's parents found out and went to police, according to the detention order. Despite a police warning, Wigglesworth called the boy another time.

The government also said Wigglesworth had been seen near the Valparaiso YMCA, though he did not have a membership.

Rodovich said in his order that the government wouldn't be able to keep Wigglesworth, who is unemployed and on medicine for depression, from trolling online to contact other minors or from hanging out near the YMCA, where minors are often present.

Copyright Sun Times News Group

 
 

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