LONG ISLAND (NY)
Newsday
BY ZACHARY R. DOWDY
Newsday Staff Writer
March 22, 2006
Nassau County police said yesterday they had arrested a former priest who traveled from his Pennsylvania home with hopes of meeting a 14-year-old boy for sex at a local hotel.
Thomas J. Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was charged with five counts of disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of an attempted criminal sexual act. He will be arraigned today in First District Court in Hempstead on the charges, Nassau detectives said last night.
Crimes Against Property Squad detectives reported that Bender had been communicating over the Internet with someone he thought was a 14-year-old boy since September 2004, and that he came to Nassau yesterday to meet the boy to take him to a local hotel for sex.
That's when Det. John McGee arrested Bender. He has been in custody since about 4:15 p.m. yesterday and was being held overnight without bail.