April 12, 2006

FUGITIVE EX-PRIEST PERV BUST

NEW YORK
New York Post

By LAURA ITALIANO

April 12, 2006 -- A defrocked Episcopal priest with a sick appetite for boys has been captured in Canada and brought back to face sodomy charges for allegedly seducing an emotionally troubled 16-year-old in Central Park last year, authorities said.

Bruce Jacques, 57 - whom investigators call a brilliant manipulator - had been living on the lam in Canada and Malaysia since Oct. 20, the day of the alleged attack.

The victim - described as psychologically immature and highly suggestible - was a student at the Robert Louis Stevenson HS on West 74th Street.

For two years, Jacques worked as the fund-raising administrator at the school for kids suffering emotional, psychological or learning difficulties - reportedly hired by hiding a sordid history as rector at St. John's Episcopal Church in New Milford, Conn.

In 1995, a 13-year-old boy at the church accused the then-priest of offering to give him oral sex as a Confirmation present. Resulting lawsuits were settled out of court, and Jacques' collar was yanked in 1998.

Posted by kshaw at April 12, 2006 08:39 AM