NEW JERSEY
The Record
THURSDAY JUNE 27, 2013
BY JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
The lawyer representing the Rev. Michael Fugee in his contempt of court case requested a hearing scheduled for next month to get an early look at evidence that prosecutors have amassed in recent weeks.
The July 25 probable cause hearing, said Michael D’Alessio, the lawyer, is meant to compel the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office to present some evidence that Fugee allegedly failed to follow a legal ban on ministering to children. The priest signed the agreement with prosecutors and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark in 2007 as part of a deal to dismiss a decades-old case that he allegedly groped a 13-year-old Wyckoff boy.
Prosecutors are continuing their apparently far-reaching investigation in the Fugee case. So far, they have seized two computers from the priest’s residence, conducted interviews and obtained thousands of pages of documents from the archdiocese, where Fugee worked in two office jobs until he resigned from the ministry last month, according to D’Alessio and prosecutors.
Fugee’s lawyer said he requested the public hearing before Superior Court Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi to “find out the basis of the complaint.” D’Alessio would not present his own evidence but would be able to cross-examine any witnesses who testified for the prosecution.
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