WISN-ABC12
December 13, 2008
http://www.wisn.com/news/18263434/detail.html
[Includes updating video Judge Denies Convicted Nun's Request For Early Release.]
Woman Expected To Request Early Jail Release
MILWAUKEE -- A nun accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys four decades ago requested an early release from jail Friday.
Sister Norma Giannini, 80, pleaded no contest to two felony counts of indecent behavior with a child and was sentenced in February to a year in the Milwaukee County House of Correction. She had 60 days to report to jail.
Giannini is eight months into the 12 month sentence, but her attorney argued in court Friday that her health problems require she be allowed to go home four months early.
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| Sister Norma Giannini |
According to Nikola Kostich, Giannini's attorney, Giannini has been rushed to the emergency room once a month for heart conditions and other ailments.
“They're concerned that absolutely the next time she has a cardiac arrhythmia episode... that she could die,” Kostich said.
However, the judge denied her early release saying Giannini is receiving medical care in prison, and it would be unfair to her victims.
"It would have an impact (if she were released) on the victims in this matter, because there is an expectation that the sentence that the court imposed be served," Judge M. Joseph Donald said.
Giannini's victims told authorities they had dozens of sexual encounters with the nun while attending St. Patrick's School in Milwaukee during the 1960s.
“It'd be like a priest giving you penance and you go from the confessional and do your proper penance,” Jim St. Patrick, one of the victims said. “That's all we're asking. Do her time. She did the crime, now do the time. Only a year.”
“Yes (she needs to serve the next four months). I think so,” Jerry Kobbs, another of Giannini’s victims said. “We got a life sentence. This aint gonna end. I would love to. Anyone you talk to, it just doesn't stop. So, here we get a life sentence, she got a year.”
Before being sentenced to jail, Giannini lived with the order Sisters of Mercy of the Chicago Regional Community in a Chicago suburb.
Giannini has admitted to a church panel that she also molested a Chicago boy and at least three other minors.
"Long before this trial, I realized how certain actions of mine have caused pain, confusion and emotional trauma. I ask forgiveness from the bottom of my heart," Giannini said.
Court documents show that a psychologist told prosecutors in 2006 that Giannini identified other victims to a Milwaukee archdiocese panel, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. Prosecutors subpoenaed the psychologist, Elizabeth Piasecki, who read into the record the notes she wrote during an interview in 1996 after abuse allegations emerged.
The notes indicate Giannini discussed molesting three other boys in Milwaukee and one in Chicago.
According to a transcript, Piasecki's notes indicated Giannini described an incident with a 14-year-old that included kissing and petting.
Sheila King, a spokeswoman for the order Sisters of Mercy of the Chicago Regional Community, said she could not confirm the existence of additional victims because the sister who was president at the time of those allegations is unavailable. The current president, Sister Betty Smith, assumed her title in 2006.
In reaction to the rejection of Gianinni's request for early release, the president of the local branch of her religious order issued a statement.
"On behalf of the sisters, I express profound regret for the pain experienced by the two men and their families and for anyone else who has been affected by this situation. We hope that the healing process has begun."
Barring a diagnosis that she's terminally ill, Gianinni will be released from jail in April and then serve ten years probation. She will most likely spend her probation in Illinois where she has lived the past 40 years.
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