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	Push Begins to Keep Ex-Priest under Lock and Key By Manya A. Brachear Chicago Breaking News July 16, 2009 http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/07/push-begins-to-keep-ex-priest-under-lock-and-key.html A doctor's evaluation scheduled for next week will determine whether prosecutors will fight to keep former West Side priest Daniel McCormack incarcerated under the Illinois Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act when he becomes eligible for parole in September. The state law allows prosecutors to seek continued and indefinite incarceration in a secure treatment facility if they believe, based on a psychological exam, that another sex crime is likely if the inmate goes free. On Thursday, victims' advocates will appeal to Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan to invoke the act in McCormack's case. Although the Sexually Violent Persons program is administered by the attorney general, it is pursued in partnership with the prosecutor who initially handled the case. A judge ultimately would decide on continued incarceration. That prosecutor, Asst. State's Atty. Shauna Boliker, expressed concern Thursday that such public pleas could backfire, saying the decision must be based on an "unbiased and uninfluenced" doctor's report. If a judge questions the objectivity of the evaluation, the petition could be dismissed, she said. "It would be so gut wrenching to think the doctor, seeing the community up in arms, can't make an unbiased decision," she said. The state law has a high bar. The vast majority of inmates who are evaluated are found to be ineligible for commitment after their sentences end. Those deemed eligible to be committed under the act can have an outside psychological evaluation done before a civil trial begins, a trial that can include a jury. If McCormack, 40, is freed, he would be required to wear an electronic ankle bracelet for three years, said Ken Tupy, legal counsel for the Illinois Prisoner Review Board. He also would not be allowed Internet access, Tupy said. In July 2007, McCormack pleaded guilty to five felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. McCormack fondled five boys between the ages of 8 and 12 inside St. Agatha's rectory, misconduct that dated to 2001. Some victims were members of the basketball team he coached at the nearby Our Lady of the West Side School; others were friends of boys who attended the school, where McCormack also taught algebra. Two audits commissioned by the Chicago Archdiocese later found a trail of abuse allegations dating to McCormack's seminary days in 1988, all of which the archdiocese had failed to investigate properly. They also found that although a priest had been assigned to monitor McCormack at St. Agatha, he still had contact with children. Since the audit, the archdiocese has centralized its procedures for handling sex-abuse allegations. McCormack has been removed from the priesthood. McCormack's parole comes on the heels of a case involving the first clergy to be incarcerated under the commitment act. Fred Lenczycki, a former priest in the Joliet diocese, was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to 5 years after pleading guilty to aggravated criminal sexual abuse of three boys. In April 2006, a month before Lenczycki was to be released on good behavior, Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan and DuPage County State's Atty. Joseph Birkett invoked the commitment act. According to the act, anyone deemed to be a sexually violent person can be held indefinitely, until a judge finds they are no longer a danger to the public. A judge ruled last week that Lenczycki could be released in September.
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