December 24, 2004

Suspended priest sentenced

NEW YORK
Newsday

BY ZACHARY R. DOWDY
STAFF WRITER

December 24, 2004

Barry Ryan, the suspended and ailing Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to repeatedly molesting a 6-year-old Suffolk boy, said yesterday that he looks forward to his own imminent death as he was sentenced in Suffolk County Court.

Ryan, 56, of Palm City, Fla., is suffering from advanced liver cancer and has just a few months to live, doctors have said.

The boy's family often let Ryan stay with them soon after he was diagnosed with cancer, and he admitted that he repaid the kindness shown to him by doing "this terrible thing."

He told the father of his victim that he begs for the family's forgiveness as he sat in a wheelchair in Judge Ralph Gazzillo's Riverhead courtroom, flanked by attorneys.

Gazzillo, who delivered an impassioned assessment of the case from the bench, said no case "has been more disturbing nor more troubling than this."

Gazzillo gave Ryan to the negotiated sentence of 2 years.

But Ryan is not expected to see the inside of a prison, said Rosamaria Abbate, the Suffolk prosecutor who handled the case. His terminal illness may take his life before the date he is supposed to go into custody, which Gazzillo set for July 7, 2005.

Posted by kshaw at December 24, 2004 08:16 AM