OHIO
Fairfield Echo
By Ed Richter
CINCINNATI —
A Fairfield-based Glenmary Missioners priest accused of federal child sex charge was released on his own recognizance and was placed on house arrest with GPS monitoring pending trial following a detention hearing Monday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati.
During Monday’s hearing, the Rev. Robert Frank Poandl, 71, also entered a plea of not guilty on the sole charge of transporting a minor across state lines for illicit purposes, according to Fred Alverson, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio. If convicted, Poandl faces up to 10 years in prison.
Alverson said Poandl will be released from custody later Monday evening after the GPS monitoring has been set-up and the remaining paperwork is completed. Poandl has been held in the Butler County Jail since voluntarily turning himself in to the FBI last Thursday following his Nov. 14 indictment. The case has been assigned to Judge Michael Barrett.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Poandl had transported a 10-year old boy from Cincinnati to West Virginia in August 1991 where he is alleged to have sexually assaulted the child, and that he has substantial international travel and connections across the country which makes him a flight risk. The crime was not disclosed until the victim came forward, according to the FBI’s Cincinnati field office.
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