NEW YORK
Buffalo News
By DAN HERBECK
News Staff Reporter
3/12/2005
A Catholic priest arrested a year ago in his Varysburg rectory was sentenced Friday to three years and one month in federal prison for viewing child pornography over the Internet.
Rodney O. Personius, the attorney representing the Rev. Fred D. Ingalls, 56, said his client suffers from an "unfortunate addiction" to images of naked children.
Ingalls, who has been a priest for 30 years, was removed as pastor of St. Joseph Church in February 2004 after federal agents seized 144 images of child pornography from his computer in the church rectory.
"I would like to express my deep regret for what I've done," the soft-spoken priest, dressed in non-clerical garb, told U.S. District Judge John T. Elfvin. "I'm sorry."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin J. Littlefield had asked for a longer sentence, arguing that some of the seized images showed prepubescent children undergoing "sadistic and masochistic" abuse by adults. But the judge turned down the request.