By Jose Lambiet
Palm Beach Post [Florida]
October 18, 2006
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2006/10/18/a2a_jose_col_1018.html
While former U.S. Congressman Mark Foley now says he'll reveal the name of the priest who allegedly molested him, a disgraced former Lake Worth churchman who took pictures of naked altar boys says he's been aware of the abuse for years.
It's just that he could never tell a soul.
Willie Romero, 69, resigned from the Catholic Church three years ago amid rumors of sexual shenanigans with some of the boys who helped him say Mass.
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| Disclosure of inappropriate communications with teen pages ends career. |
The Archdiocese of Miami paid out $1.5 million to his alleged victims.
One received $135,000.
Enter Romero's nephew, Lake Worth resident Mike Callahan. As Romero struggled with his own scandal, Callahan bought the priest's North K Street home while the padre moved to LaBelle. Callahan says he was cleaning the attic when a set of 20 disturbing Polaroids turned up in a box.
In several photos, Romero poses nude with sea oats sticking out of his mouth. In some, naked boys swim, sun themselves on the banks of the lake or climb on Romero's motorboat.
Was Mark Foley among them?
After all, Romero officiated his first Mass at Sacred Heart Church in 1967 before he went on to work in a half dozen South Florida parishes. And Foley was an altar boy there about that time.
Just a coincidence, Romero tells Page Two. He says he's never met Foley and led only a handful of services at Sacred Heart.
But Romero has known many altar boys.
"I used to take altar boys from my parishes on boating trips," Romero says. "We'd go up the St. Lucie River to the lake and camp out there. We had fun.
"It wasn't sexual," said Romero, who remembers the pictures that Callahan found. "That trip was in 1970 or '71. There's nothing wrong. The boys wanted to skinny-dip, and to make them feel at ease, I skinny-dipped, too. I have a lot of pictures like that."
Bring Foley up again, and Romero gets mad.
"Don't even try to pin that one on me!" he said. "I've been smeared enough. Mark Foley is not in any of those pictures."
But quickly Romero adds he has talked to the man who allegedly abused the future Republican star.
"I know who did it," said Romero, a world-renown miniature-boat builder who now, believe it or not, has been hosting Vietnamese foreign exchange high schoolers in his double-wide. "But I can't say. Priests are not allowed to break the sacred seal of confession!"
A local Catholic Church source said that, even if he is no longer a priest, Romero is bound to the secret of the confessional until he dies.
Shouting match escalates
A recent shouting match before a dining room full of hushed patrons at the swanky Cafe L'Europe in Palm Beach sparked a series of events that ended with big-deal divorce lawyer Robin Roshkind having her beau arrested.
When the smoke cleared, at 2 a.m., North Palm investment adviser Michael Abate had been charged with battery and DUI.
"It's a travesty," Abate said. "That wasn't DUI. I was just woozy after she hit me over the head with a vase. Guess I shouldn't have gotten behind the wheel, but I needed to get away from her."
Roshkind, 55, and Abate, 60, were having drinks at the eatery about 10 p.m. when Roshkind, said Abate, got into an argument with another patron. The argument escalated when Abate sided with Roshkind's nemesis.
"That was the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen," Abate said. "And I've seen things when I lived in New York."
Abate said he dragged Roshkind to his car and drove her to her South Flagler condo. There, according to a WPB PD report, Roshkind and Abate got into it again. She says he pushed her into a glass frame, causing heavy bleeding and a concussion. He says she assaulted him with a glass vase.
Police responded to the condo building and charged Abate with assault at the scene, then sent him home. But he slammed his Dodge Durango into a tree just two blocks from Roshkind's building. That's when another cop charged him with DUI.
"I fight domestic abuse for a living, and it happens to me," Roshkind said. "Goes to show you it can happen to anyone." The two of them were much more amorous earlier this year when they were caught frolicking in a Mar-a-Lago hot tub in the middle of the night.
Going public in Wellington
The wicked Wellington gossips can stop their tongue-wagging about Village Councilwoman Lizbeth Benacquisto's barely kept secret.
The 38-year-old recent divorcée, whose political aspirations may include a future run for the Palm Beach County Commission, now admits she and developer George Banks are an item.
Why does it matter?
Benacquisto says she is considering telling her colleagues and the public about Banks, who's also divorced, at an upcoming council meeting because one of his controversial projects soon comes before city leaders. The projected shopping center in the village's equestrian zone was supposed to have been discussed at last week's meeting but was pulled off the agenda.
"I have been talking to the village attorney about this," Benacquisto said. "I could recuse myself from the vote, although I don't have to since I'm not married to the man. Or I could suddenly have to go to the bathroom when the vote comes up. I'll let the project stand on its own merit."
Benacquisto also shot down talk that she had been lobbying her colleagues to approve the project. She and Banks did recently take Mayor Tom Wenham to dinner, she said, but they didn't discuss Banks' plan.
"In the light of what's happening with other elected officials in this county, I'm staying away from it."
In May, she didn't return Page Two's calls about the relationship. But mother-of-two Benacquisto, who was elected twice on her image as the perfect soccer mom, now gushes about Banks.
"He is such a wonderful man," she said. "I'm very happy he's in my life."
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