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  Witness Alleges Frequent Sexual Abuse by Priest

By David Heinzmann
Chicago Breaking News
October 10, 2008

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/10/witness-alleges-daily-sexual-abuse-by-priest.html

Donald McGuire's lawyer peppered the defrocked priest's accuser with questions today about why years passed without the young man seeking help or confiding his allegations of sexual abuse to anyone.

The witness, identified only as Dominick, told the jury he kept quiet for years because he felt intimidated by McGuire's stature in Catholic circles.

During the cross-examination, Stephen Komie, McGuire's lawyer, honed in on Dominick's lawsuit seeking money from McGuire and the Jesuit religious order.

Komie argued that Dominick did not approach law enforcement until after he had hired a private attorney to pursue damages. Dominick acknowledged that he went to authorities last year on the advice of his private attorney, Kevin McGuire, a nephew to the defrocked priest.

McGuire is charged with molesting the boy on two trips--one to Europe and one to a Catholic retreat house in Minnesota--in the early 2000s. Four other accusers have been allowed to testify against McGuire at the trial in federal court in Chicago.

McGuire was convicted in Wisconsin in 2006 of molesting two students at Loyola Academy, the Wilmette prep school where McGuire was once on the faculty.

Komie's questioning painted a picture of Dominick benefiting greatly from McGuire's financial support and help attending Catholic boarding schools. While prosecutors have alleged McGuire dominated every part of the boy's life so that he would be a compliant sexual partner, Komie suggested the boy was taking advantage of the priest's generosity.

He questioned Dominick at length about letters he sent to McGuire's network of friends and financial supporters in 2005 seeking help paying for college. He detailed how McGuire's supporters paid the boy's travel expenses and meals when he accompanied the priest on trips.

Dominick and another former personal assistant earlier testified that McGuire coerced them into giving him nude, sexual massages using baby oil and other lubricants. Dominick also testified that McGuire began a years-long pattern of sexual conduct with him after first broaching the sexual subjects during the sacrament of confession when the boy was 13.

Komie challenged the testimony about sexual massages by showing Dominick a to-do list for the priest's personal assistants that included rubdowns with lotion for medical reasons.

The defense's cross-examination of Dominick was scheduled to continue after a lunch break.

Earlier today, Dominick testified that just days after he arrived to live with McGuire, the then-priest began telling him he had a sexual problem that could be healed only by allowing the priest to fondle him. The boy was 13 at the time.

Dominick testified that he initially was enamored of the priest. But the witness described how his life slid into a nightmare in which he felt he had nowhere to turn because everybody he knew revered McGuire.

"To go against McGuire would be to go against an empire," the witness said.

Over the course of testimony in the morning, he described nearly daily sexual encounters that began with nude massages and would often end with the priest performing oral sex on the boy.

 
 

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