February 18, 2006

Priest's sex assault trial begins in Walworth County

ELKHORN (WI)
Janesville Gazette

(Published Saturday, February 18, 2006 12:53:19 AM CST)

By Mike Heine/Gazette Staff

ELKHORN-"A stereotypical Irishman with a twinkle in his eye."

That's how Walworth County District Attorney Phil Koss described Rev. Donald R. McGuire during opening statements in the retired priest's child sex assault trial that began Friday in Walworth County Court.

"People gravitated to him and they like him," Koss added.

McGuire, 75, of Chicago faces five nearly 40-year-old counts of indecent behavior with a child and 50 years in prison if convicted. His trial is expected to run through next week.

In the late 1960s, McGuire befriended two boys at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Ill., where he taught several foreign languages and religion, Koss said. Eventually, McGuire began a pattern of massaging and rubbing the boys' genitals in both his on-campus living quarters in Illinois and at a Geneva Lake home in Fontana, Koss said.

Posted by kshaw at February 18, 2006 10:39 AM