Advocates for North Jersey Boy Call Newark Archdiocese Slow to Respond to Reported Abuse

By Jeff Green
The Record
May 3, 2013

http://www.northjersey.com/news/crime_courts/Advocates_for_abused_boy_call_Newark_Archdiocese_slow_to_respond.html

Ron Fraioli said he went to his pastor at St. Elizabeth’s of Hungary Church in Wyckoff in 2000 with a stunning allegation: An assistant pastor, the Rev. Michael Fugee, was repeatedly groping a 13-year-old boy in mock wrestling sessions when he visited the home of the boy’s mother.

The pastor, Monsignor Thomas O’Leary, wrote a letter making a strong case for an investigation of Fugee to his superiors at the Archdiocese of Newark, Fraioli said. Months passed with no reply.

Fraioli, a lawyer who has kept a large file of exacting notes of conversations and correspondence related to the alleged sexual abuse, said he sought a direct response from the archdiocese and was told by a lawyer there that the allegations were based on third-hand information and that he could not report them to authorities.

Five months had elapsed, he said, since the pastor wrote his letter. Fraioli and parishioner Janice Thomas, both devout Catholics who said they sought action first from their church, went to state child protection services, which referred them to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, they said in interviews this week.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said on Friday that there was no internal investigation about the Wyckoff boy’s allegations against Fugee.

Fugee, who was convicted in 2003 of aggravated criminal sexual contact in the case of the Wyckoff boy, is at the center of a new scandal enveloping the archdiocese, which signed an agreement that barred the priest from ever working unsupervised with children after his conviction was overturned. The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office is investigating whether Fugee and the archdiocese violated terms of the agreement after learning the priest had traveled on retreats with a parish youth group in Monmouth County and heard confessions of children, activities that are strictly prohibited.

Across the state, and the nation, the news sparked a torrent of criticism of Newark Archbishop John J. Myers, who was not yet installed in his post when parishioners went to the archdiocese with allegations against Fugee. The archbishop’s office until Thursday defended Fugee as having done nothing wrong because he was under youth ministry supervision. Victims’ advocates and politicians, including the leading Democratic contender for governor, state Sen. Barbara Buono, have called for Myers to resign.

The priest resigned from two archdiocese office positions on Thursday and will be leaving his residence in archdiocesan quarters. James Goodness, a spokesman for the archdioceses, said that Myers did not request the priest’s resignation.

In his resignation letter, released on Friday, Fugee said that he was the only one to blame for going on the trips and that Myers was unaware of his actions.

“My failure to request the required permissions to engage in those ministry activities is my fault, my fault alone,” he wrote.

But one victims’ advocate said he doesn’t buy Fugee’s explanation.

“If he’ll lie to protect himself, he’ll also lie to protect Archbishop Myers who has so long protected him,” Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said in a statement.

Fugee could not be reached for comment. Multiple calls placed with his attorney, Michael D’Alessio, were not returned.

Thomas, 50, former owner of Paddy’s Grill, said in an interview this week that she remembered the day when Fugee’s alleged victim opened up to her in the restaurant’s kitchen 13 years ago. The boy, she said, described how Fugee tackled and mounted him, sometimes five minutes at a time.

“He was stalking him … he would grab [the boy] and get him turned around and grab his crotch and rub up against the back of him,” she said.

The boy’s biggest worry, Thomas said, was going on a vacation to Virginia Beach on which Fugee was invited. Thomas said she told the boy’s mother about the molestation, but she didn’t act. They went on the trip, and once they settled into a hotel Fugee struck for the last time, Thomas said.

“While his mom went into the shower, [Fugee] jumped on him,” Thomas said.

She said the boy again confided in her afterward and that began the five-month process of urging the archdiocese to report the activity. During that time, Thomas said she also wrote emails to Fugee, insisting that he stay away from the boy. Fugee wrote that “he had trouble respecting people’s boundaries,” but he didn’t grope the boy again, she said.

Then Fraioli, who was Thomas’ real estate lawyer and the first person she thought to go to for help, became involved, Thomas said.

Fraioli said in an interview that he contacted the archdiocesan attorney, William Cambria, who said the parish and archdiocese had no obligation to report the allegations to law enforcement because they had only “third-hand knowledge” of the situation.

Myers was not archbishop at the time and the 2002 Dallas Charter, a nationwide “zero tolerance” policy for child sex abuse within the church, had yet to be established.

“I really believed in the deepest part of my soul they would do the right thing, but the church and archdiocese turned their back,” Thomas said.

O’Leary, the pastor who wrote the archdiocese asking for an investigation of the allegations, could not be reached for comment. He has since retired.

Given no other choice, Thomas said, she drove the boy to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, where they both gave statements.

“I could see he was relieved,” she said, adding that the boy never changed his story.

Cambria, who left as archdiocesan attorney in 2001, said he did not remember speaking with Fraioli, receiving a letter from the Wyckoff parish or handling the Fugee case. He said the archdiocese had begun inquiries into sex-abuse allegations in which the victim did not come forward and was unsure whether it had done the same for Fugee.

“Things are different now than they were then, no doubt, and that’s a good thing,” Cambria said.

Goodness, Myers’ spokesman, said on Friday that the archdiocese did not conduct an investigation of the boy’s allegations before Fugee’s arrest in 2001. Before the sweeping reforms a year later, the archdiocese would initiate internal investigations in cases of reported child sex abuse only if the victim came forward, Goodness said.

Now, the archdiocese has a victim assistance coordinator who sends complaints to the county prosecutors and sets up counseling for alleged victims, regardless of who reports the allegations, he said.

When Fugee’s conviction was overturned on appeal, he entered a special probation program for first-time offenders in 2007 to avoid a new trial. He served a two-year probation, underwent sex-offender-specific counseling and was ordered to have no contact with the victim.

He also signed an agreement with prosecutors and the archdiocese to never again be with children while unsupervised, minister to children or work with children as long as he remained a priest.

Myers returned Fugee to the ministry in 2009 after his probation was finished and after a review board examined his case and found that no sexual abuse occurred. A Vatican office confirmed the findings, which are confidential.

Victims’ advocates have said his decision to restore Fugee to ministry enabled Fugee to participate with the youth ministry, even though he was not assigned to work with children.

Myers moved Fugee into several different locations over the past few years, each time igniting furor among people who were initially unaware of his past. In 2009, he assigned Fugee to work as a chaplain at a Newark hospital without disclosing his background. After media inquiries, he was removed.

Then in February, after Myers promoted Fugee with an additional office position, parishioners of a Rochelle Park parish, who also were oblivious to the criminal case, demanded his removal from a church rectory where he was living at the time.

Email: greenj@northjersey.com