NEW JERSEY
Patch
By Devin McGinley
Former Wyckoff pastor Michael Fugee was arrested and charged Monday with multiple counts of contempt of a court order, after allegedly violating a 2007 agreement with prosecutors to discontinue work with children following accusations of sexual misconduct.
The cleric has been living at St. Antoninus Parish on South Orange Avenue in Newark.
Fugee, 52, confessed in 2001 to two acts of sexual misconduct with a Wyckoff teenager, once during a visit to the teen’s home and again during an overnight church retreat to Virginia. The confession was later recanted, and a 2003 conviction was overturned on judicial error in 2007.
Prosecutors opted not to retry Fugee, and instead reached an agreement with the priest and the Archdiocese of Newark that Fugee would return to the priesthood under the condition that he refrain from working with minors.
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