BishopAccountability.org
	Ex-Bally Priest Gets 10 Years in Web Sex Sting By Dan Kelly Reading Eagle May 22, 2008 http://www.readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=92784 The former priest at a Bally Roman Catholic church with a prior conviction of molesting a teenage boy was sentenced Wednesday to 10 years in prison and a lifetime of probation. Thomas Bender, 74, of Macungie, Lehigh County, pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to attempting to distribute indecent material to a minor, attempting a criminal sex act and attempted child endangerment. Bender served as pastor at Most Blessed Sacrament in Bally from 1982 to 1985. He was sentenced July 7, 1988, to seven years of probation for molesting a teenage boy. In the recent case, Bender was arrested in March 2006 after trying to lure who he thought was a 14-year-old boy he had met on the Internet to a motel in Levittown, N.Y., for sex. The boy turned out to be an undercover detective. Bender initially pleaded guilty but tried to withdraw the guilty plea in August 2006. State prosecutors accused Bender of trying to take advantage of a loophole in a state Internet child pornography law and asked federal prosecutors to accept the case. The FBI took over the investigation in October 2006 and on Wednesday U.S. District Judge Sandra J. Feuerstein of the Eastern District of New York sentenced the former priest to double the five-year sentence prescribed by federal sentencing guidelines plus the probation. "This will provide respect to the law and provide enough time for counseling," the judge told Bender. Feuerstein said she doubled the sentence because of Bender's prior conviction and sentence of seven years of probation. She said he had been given ample time to seek counseling and it had not worked. Bender began a relationship with the boy in 1979 when the boy was 10 and Bender was pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Gordon, Schuylkill County. Prosecutors said Bender intended to take the boy to a motel for sex. He was carrying condoms, beer, pornography, a digital camera, candy, gum, toothpaste and a laptop computer when he was arrested. • Contact reporter Dan Kelly at 610-371-5040 or at dkelly@readingeagle.com.
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