NEW BRITAIN (CT)
Hartford Courant
February 18, 2005
By JOANN KLIMKIEWICZ, Courant Staff Writer NEW BRITAIN -- The Rev. Roman Kramek was sentenced to nine months in prison Thursday for sexually assaulting a teenage girl who had sought his spiritual counseling more than two years ago.
The Polish cleric stood silent and stoic in the crowded courtroom, listening through an interpreter as Superior Court Judge Susan B. Handy reminded him of the sacred vows he took upon entering the priesthood.
"Instead of ... upholding those vows, you took advantage of a young, troubled woman for your own sexual gratification," she told Kramek, 42, who arrived from Poland in late 2002 for a temporary assignment at Sacred Heart Church in New Britain.
The judge said she handed down the sentence - accepted by Kramek in December as part of a plea bargain - to bring the case to a close and spare the girl, now 19, further humiliation.