By Rudy Larini
NJ Blog
October 24, 2007
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2007/10/former_catholic_priest_and_adm.html
Former Catholic priest and admitted child molester James Hanley pleaded guilty today to a weapons offense in connection with an unrelated incident at a Secaucus motel last year.
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| Former Catholic priest James Hanley pleads guilty on assault charges as part of plea agreement in Hudson Superior Court today. Photo by Jennifer Brown |
James Hanley, 71, who had rejected several earlier plea offers, will avoid jail time by pleading guilty to unlawful possession of a weapon, admitting he used an aluminum bat to intimidate three employees of the Extended Stay Hotel in 2006. The hotel's desk clerk had told authorities Hanley became belligerent after the 23-year-old clerk rebuffed his sexual advances.
Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 7. Under the agreement, the judge will count the year Hanley spent in jail for missing a court date last October as ample punishment.
Hanley had rejected the same plea deal twice Tuesday - despite the urging of two judges - as jury selection was about to begin for his Superior Court trial in Jersey City. He earlier had rejected the offer on two other occasions.
Hanley, walking with the help of a cane and looking frail and disheveled with a scraggly, unkempt beard, was released and left court without commenting after Judge Paul DePascale accepted his plea.
The former Catholic priest was removed from the clergy in 2003 after admitting, in a sworn statement for a civil lawsuit, that he sexually abused about a dozen child parishioners in Mendham and Pompton Plains between 1968 and 1982.
He was never prosecuted for those offenses, however, because the statute of limitations had expired.
In 2004, the Diocese of Paterson settled lawsuits with 21 of Hanley's accusers for nearly $5 million.
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