By Jeff Diamant
The Star-Ledger
May 8, 2008
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/05/former_priest_james_hanley_ple.html
James Hanley, the former Catholic priest at the center of New Jersey's worst clergy sex abuse case, pleaded guilty today to a bail-jumping charge stemming from a missed December court date in an assault case.
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| James Hanley, seen Oct. 2007. Photo by Jennifer Brown |
The guilty plea, in state Superior Court in Jersey City, could lead to an end to the case that originated in assault charges against Hanley after a March 2006 incident at a Secaucus motel.
Hanley pleaded guilty last October in that case, to the reduced charge of unlawful possession of a weapon. He admitted using an aluminum bat to intimidate three employees at the Extended Stay Hotel.
He is expected to be sentenced May 19 to time served, and to a $1,000 fine.
Where he will live next in unclear, said his attorney, public defender James Convery.
His whereabouts are likely to be of interest to the men he molested as children, men who have tried to monitor his movements for several years so as to alert neighbors to his past. Hanley has admitted to abusing about a dozen men in Mendham and Pompton Plains between 1968 and 1982.
Because of expired statutes of limitation, he was never criminally charged in those cases, and is not subject to Megan's Law notifications.
In 2004, the Diocese of Paterson settled lawsuits with 21 of his accusers for nearly $5 million.
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