ALLENTOWN (PA)
Morning Call [Allentown PA]
January 23, 2023
By Daniel Patrick Sheehan
William McCandless served honorably in the Navy and brought compassion to his various ministries as a Catholic priest — including as an adviser to Monaco’s royal family —but all the while, evil resided within him, a judge said Monday.
“You could not contain that evil,” U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith told McCandless, a former counselor at DeSales University, before handing down the maximum sentence under a plea deal for child pornography during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Easton.
Smith sentenced McCandless to 37 months in prison and 15 years of supervised release for using his cellphone to try to access pornography featuring underage boys. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri Stephan said computer analysis showed the Salesian priest visited 3,000 pages featuring such pornography, some of which showed children being tortured.
“He had no empathy for a single child in any of those images,” she said. “The reaction McCandless felt was to look for more.”
McCandless, 57, of Wilmington, Delaware, was charged in 2020 with possessing child pornography for importation into the U.S., transporting child pornography in interstate and foreign commerce, and attempted access with intent to view child pornography.
Authorities at the time said he had amassed a vast collection of child pornography while in Monaco and brought it back to the U.S. — a charge McCandless denied.
In May, he pleaded guilty to attempted access and the other charges were dropped. He could have been sentenced to up to 60 years in prison had he been convicted of all charges.
McCandless will never serve in ministry again. After his release, he will live under the supervision of his order, the Wilmington-based Oblates of St. Francis DeSales, barred from contact with anyone under 18. He will also be placed on a sex offender registry.
He apologized to his family, friends, religious order and “to anyone who ever placed faith in me.”
“Words cannot express the depths of my remorse,” he said.
At the time of McCandless’ arrest, federal officials said the priest frequently traveled overseas and was assigned to the English-speaking St. Charles Parish in Monaco from 2010-17. He had a close relationship with Princess Charlene, wife of Prince Albert II. He presided over the baptism of their twins in 2014.
McCandless was a counselor in the Wellness Center at DeSales from February to October 2017. His employment at the Upper Saucon Township university was terminated when the school learned he was under investigation. McCandless graduated from the school in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in education and theology.
Smith praised McCandless for his 11 years of service in the Navy, and noted that scores of people submitted letters supporting the priest for the good he had done in his career.
Smith likened McCandless’ attraction to child pornography to an incurable illness.
“Why did you choose the priesthood?” he said. “Was it an attempt to fight it or to go further with it? I believe it was to fight it. But you couldn’t fight against it to the degree that you could stop looking at it.”
Stephan argued for the maximum sentence, saying McCandless’ reaction upon finding out he was under investigation was to search for ways to conceal internet activity and to “drop off the grid.”
McCandless’ lawyer, Michael Diamondstein, said his client acknowledged the grave nature of the crime but was not the “devil in a priest’s collar” the prosecution portrayed.
The priest’s attraction to the images is “sick, it is wrong, and I hope one day better minds than I will be able to fix it,” he said.
Morning Call reporter Daniel Patrick Sheehan can be reached at 610-820-6598 or dsheehan@mcall.com