Priest charged with abusing 15 girls threatened victims with wrath: ‘He thought he was God’

NEW YORK (NY)
Daily News

September 28, 2017

By Graham Rayman

The abusive Catholic priest accused of terrorizing at least 15 girls at a Queens school decades ago once threatened one of his victims into silence with the power of God.

In 1981, Father Adam Prochaski of the Holy Cross Parish in Maspeth allegedly lectured a group of students, including one of his victims, who was then 13, about a woman who was “saying bad things” about him.

“He thought he was God,” the now-49-year-old nurse living in Toronto told the Daily News.

“He said, ‘She died in a car accident, her body burned beyond recognition. God punished her for telling stories about Father Adam.’ When he told the story, he was looking right at me.”

She said Prochaski, now 75 and living in Queens, sexually abused her at least 60 times between the ages of 11 and 13 between 1979 and 1981 at the church and school. She requested that her name not be used.

He used his involvement in the choir and in the teen club and his general influence in the school to get close to her, she said.

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.