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	Prosecutors Seek 1 Trial in Priest Abuse Case Associated Press, carried in KTAR October 23, 2008 http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=978619 Prosecutors are asking a Maricopa County judge to overturn a justice of the peace's ruling that allows five separate trials against a Roman Catholic priest. In the 27-page appeal of a Sept. 16 ruling by San Tan Justice of the Peace Sam Goodman, Deputy County Attorney Elizabeth Burton Ortiz asks for a reversal of Goodman's order. Goodman's ruling would effectively schedule five consecutive jury trials for Monsignor Dale Fushek's accusers to separately lay out their cases against the one time St. Timothy's Catholic Community priest. The seven misdemeanor charges stem from incidents between 1984 and 1993 when Fushek was providing counseling and the alleged victims were teens. The charges include five counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, one count of indecent exposure and one of assault. Fushek, 56, the former vicar general of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, used his relationship of trust with the teens to perform criminal acts on "unsuspecting and vulnerable" minors and adults, prosecutors said. Fushek, founder of the international Catholic youth program Life Teen, was originally slated to be tried by a judge, but successfully appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court to have a jury trial. Goodman, in his September ruling, said that a jury would be ill-equipped to hear testimony on separate incidents from the five complainants and not have one case prejudice their decisions. Prosecutors also want a reversal of Goodman's ruling to exclude evidence from cases previously dismissed and where investigation turned up a pattern of behavior they say establishes Fushek's "aberrant sexual propensity" to commit the offenses. "In order to prove sexual motivation, the state must be allowed to show the ongoing pattern" of the priest's conduct, the appeal said. Ortiz said separating the cases puts both alleged victims and prosecutors in an unfair position because establishing a pattern of conduct would be difficult. "The type of offenses" Fushek is charged with "require multifaceted evidence to prove intent and rebut his defense," the appeal said. Goodman ruled the oldest complaints against Fushek would be the first to go to trial. The first trial had been scheduled for Nov. 17, but the appeal seems likely to delay the cases.
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