NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger
[Documents from The Star-Ledger
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s confession to police
• Read Archbishop John J. Myers’ February letter to priests about the Rev. Michael Fugee]
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on April 28, 2013
After all the Catholic Church has been through, it is beyond infuriating that Newark Archbishop John J. Myers can be so neglectful of his duty to protect children from sexual predators.
He should resign immediately and apologize to the families whose children he left exposed, barring some stunning new disclosure that could exonerate him in the face of the damning facts presented by The Star-Ledger’s Mark Mueller in today’s edition.
The case concerns Michael Fugee, a priest who was convicted in a sexual abuse case in 2003 after he confessed to fondling a 14-year-old boy, and being a compulsive masturbator obsessed with penis size.
The conviction was overturned when a higher court found the judge had given improper instructions to jurors. Instead of trying Fugee again, as they should have, prosecutors allowed him to avoid jail by joining a program for first-offenders.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.