NEW JERSEY
The Record
FRIDAY MAY 3, 2013
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
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.
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