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Priest’s Sentencing Delayed As Judge Balks at Hearing on Sex Charges

By Alex Wood
Journal Inquirer
December 16, 2016

http://www.journalinquirer.com/towns/east_windsor/priest-s-sentencing-delayed-as-judge-balks-at-hearing-on/article_5d4b0220-c3c0-11e6-8acd-1f544fbace88.html

The priest who formerly served East Windsor’s two Roman Catholic parishes was to be sentenced Thursday for providing gunpowder to a juvenile parishioner, and federal prosecutors wanted to use the occasion essentially to put him on trial on accusations that he had sexually assaulted the boy as well.

But Judge Robert N. Chatigny torpedoed the plan, causing more delay in the sentencing of the priest, Paul A. Gotta, in U.S. District Court in Hartford.

In July 2013 Gotta was placed on leave from his post as administrator

of St. Philip Church on South Main Street and St. Catherine Church on Windsorville Road as a result of sexual abuse allegations by the boy, Kyle Bass, who had been arrested on firearms charges.

The issue the judge faced Thursday is a result of federal sentencing procedures in which a judge who is sentencing a defendant for a crime can also consider other misconduct by the defendant.

Gotta pleaded guilty in March to a single count of providing explosive material to a person younger than 21, which carries up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The sentence Chatigny imposes can’t exceed those maximums, but he can consider numerous factors, including other crimes Gotta may have committed, in deciding what sentence to impose.

Gotta faced a total of six charges in his federal indictment, all related to his involvement with Bass on matters related to guns and explosives. There appears to be little doubt that the judge can consider all those allegations in determining the sentence.

Because Gotta disputes many of those allegations, the judge may still have to hear testimony before sentencing him. The lawyers will try to decide at a conference next week what they need to present to the judge on those issues.

Gotta was prosecuted in state court based on the sexual abuse accusations. He plea bargained that case in Hartford Superior Court and was convicted only of a misdemeanor count of second-degree breach of peace, based on a non-sexual assault accusation. He received a six-month suspended sentence and a two-year “conditional discharge,” which is similar to probation.

Federal sentencing guidelines call for Gotta to receive a prison sentence between six and 12 months and a fine between $2,000 and $20,000, according to his written plea agreement. But both sides reserved their rights to seek a sentence outside that range.

In his sentencing memorandum, prosecutor Robert M. Spector called for a prison sentence of 51 months, or 4? years, which he arrived at by reviewing federal sentencing guidelines for “sexual abuse offenses.”

“In my 20-plus years on the bench here, the U.S. attorney’s office has never asked for anything like that,” the judge said. He said a sexual abuse allegation is “devastating to a person” and that a finding by a judge that the accusation is valid is even more devastating.

The judge said the only legal authority he had been able to find for a hearing like the one the prosecutor proposed was a provision of the sentencing guidelines that permits a judge to consider whether a defendant committed a crime for the purpose of committing another crime. He cited the example of a case in which someone was prosecuted for providing a date-rape drug to a minor, and a judge increased the sentence because the defendant’s purpose in providing the drug was to rape the child.

But Spector said that wasn’t his theory, arguing instead that the facts related to the sexual assault and the firearms and explosives accusations are “intertwined” and that one of the factual disputes before the judge will be Gotta’s motive for the federal crimes. He said supervisors in his office, including U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly, agreed with his approach.

 

 

 

 

 




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