DALLAS (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
Ex-priest accused of hiring hit man to kill abuse accuser testifies he thought his life was in danger
By Scott Goldstein / Reporter
sgoldstein@dallasnews.com
10:11 am on May 17, 2012
A former Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy at gunpoint testified this morning that he told a purported hit man to kill his accuser because he thought his own life was in danger.
John Fiala said his friend and neighbor Scottie Fisher told him the hit man was his brother. The brother would likely turn on Fiala if he wasn’t convinced the hit was on, Fiala said Fisher told him.
“I knew that if I didn’t do this, I’d be the one on the list, marked to be killed, according to what Scottie said,” Fiala said.
But the man Fiala met with in November 2010 and instructed to murder his accuser in exchange for $5,000 was actually an undercover police officer. And the entire conversation was surreptitiously video recorded and played for the Dallas County jury yesterday.
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