Admitted Sex Abuser Takes Deal in Hotel Rage Incident
By Abbott Koloff
Daily Record
October 25, 2007
http://dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071025/COMMUNITIES27/710250345
JERSEY CITY — James T. Hanley, the former priest at the center of a Morris County sex abuse scandal, pleaded guilty Wednesday to an unrelated weapons charge for using a baseball bat to threaten Secaucus hotel clerks last year.
Hanley took a plea, which allowed him to go free after having already spent a year in jail, after rejecting a similar offer on Tuesday when he said he wanted to go to trial.
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| Former Morris-area priest James T. Hanley, made infamous in a sex abuse scandal, pleaded guilty Wednesday to unlawful possession of a weapon. Photo by Jennifer Brown |
Hanley told authorities that he intended to return to a Garfield boarding house where he said he had been staying before his arrest. But law enforcement officials said it appeared he might end up homeless after getting out of jail because, during a previous court hearing, the owner of that boarding house told authorities Hanley would not be welcomed back.
"He said he was going back to the Garfield address," said Howard Bell, a Hudson County assistant prosecutor. "At this point, I don't know how he could say they are going to accept him back."
John Convery, Hanley's public defender, did not respond to a message left at his office.
Bell asked state Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale to require Hanley to report weekly to the Hudson County court leading up to his Dec. 7 sentencing date. The judge rejected that request but said he would issue a warrant for Hanley's arrest if he doesn't show up for sentencing, authorities said.
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| Former Catholic priest James Hanley pleads guilty to assault charges in Hudson Superior Court.
Photo by Jennifer Brown |
"We will be filing a bail-jumping charge if he doesn't show up," Bell said.
Hanley agreed to be defrocked by the Paterson Roman Catholic Diocese in 2002, a process that was completed in 2003.
He had been living in an apartment in Paterson until early last year when a victim's advocacy group went there and distributed leaflets telling neighbors that he was an admitted child molester. Hanley angrily confronted those victims in front of TV cameras, later saying he felt like a "cornered rat."
Hanley has admitted to abusing at least a dozen children at three Morris County parishes and was the central figure in a lawsuit by more than two dozen people who received a $5 million settlement in 2005 from the Paterson Diocese.
He was the pastor of St. Joseph's in Mendham for 10 years until 1982, and previously served at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Pequannock and St. Christopher's parish in Parsippany. Paterson Diocese officials have acknowledged that Hanley continued working in a Wayne parish for almost a year after Bishop Frank Rodimer, then head of the diocese, was told in 1985 about allegations of abuse. Hanley later was sent to work at a hospital in Albany, N.Y.
He was charged in March, 2006, with making terroristic threats and having a weapon for an unlawful purpose, both third-degree charges that could have landed him in prison for between three to five years. Authorities said he argued with clerks at the Extended Stay Hotel in Secaucus over a hotel bill. One of the clerks, they said, claimed Hanley tried to kiss him.
Hanley pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a weapon, a baseball bat, a fourth-degree crime that carries a maximum of 18 months in prison. However, as part of his plea agreement, his sentence was time served and court officials said he was expected to be released Wednesday evening.
Hanley previously said in an interview with the Daily Record that he was using the bat as a cane.
Patricia Serrano, of Mendham, whose son Mark was abused by Hanley, attended Wednesday's court hearing and later referred to the plea agreement as "anti-climactic." She said some of Hanley's victims will suffer from abuse for the rest of their lives.
"I don't feel satisfied," she said. "He gets out while some of his Mendham victims have life sentences."
Authorities had been prepared to go to trial on Wednesday and were in the process of selecting a jury when Hanley accepted a plea agreement. Bell said the manager of the hotel was prepared to testify for the prosecution and prosecutors also planned to play a security videotape of the hotel incident.
The video, Bell said, shows Hanley holding a bat up in the air and then using it to hit a counter where the clerks were standing, causing papers and other objects to "go flying." Bell said a witness alleged that Hanley threatened to "smash" the manager's head with the bat.
Abbott Koloff can be reached at (973) 428-6636 or akoloff@gannett.com
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