GREEN BAY (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By STEVE SCHULTZE and MARIE ROHDE
sschultze@journalsentinel.com
Posted: July 27, 2005
A Brown County jury convicted a 62-year-old former priest in Green Bay of two felony child sex assault charges Wednesday, in an unusual case involving attacks during counseling sessions at a Catholic parish school in 1988.
Donald J. Buzanowski faces up to 40 years in prison on the convictions for indecently touching a 10-year-old boy at Green Bay's Ss. Peter & Paul Catholic school. Buzanowski at the time was pastor of an associated parish.
The victim, David Schauer, now 27, went to the sessions because of trouble he'd had with a school bully.
"It's nice to be believed," a relieved Schauer said after the verdict Wednesday. "For so long, I felt that I was the only one that something like this ever happened to."
Buzanowski left Green Bay in 1989 for Milwaukee and worked as a drug counselor for Children's Court during most of the 1990s. He served 21 months in federal prison on a 2000 child pornography conviction and was back in Milwaukee as a volunteer for an east side Protestant church after his release in 2002.
Buzanowski's sentencing is Sept. 16.