By Bon Babwin and William Mccall
The Plain Dealer
February 12, 2009
http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2009/02/former_priest_gets_25_years_fo.html
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| In this Sept. 13, 2007, photo, Donald J. McGuire enters his residence in Oak Lawn, Ill.. McGuire, convicted of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him, was sentenced at federal court in Chicago, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009, to 25 years in prison. |
CHICAGO -- A former Roman Catholic priest convicted of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison.
Donald McGuire, of Oak Lawn, displayed no emotion as U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer imposed a 300-month sentence that likely means the 78-year-old former priest will die in prison.
Pallmeyer said McGuire used his stature, his international reputation that included being a spiritual adviser to Mother Teresa and the trust parents had in him that he would care for "the finest gifts God ever gave them: their children."
She said the boys' confidence, faith, innocence and sexual desire were destroyed.
"You robbed them of all these things," she said after a hearing that included statements from victims, including McGuire's godson.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Ruder told the judge that it was "a horrific and monstrous crime."
McGuire was convicted in October of charges of traveling outside the United States and across state lines to have sex with a teenager between 2000 and 2003. The Vatican ordered McGuire out of the priesthood last year.
In 2006, McGuire was convicted in Wisconsin of child molestation and sentenced to seven years in prison. He has appealed that conviction.
McGuire also has been indicted in Arizona on child molestation charges and faces lawsuits on new child molestation accusations.
Victims and their parents testified before the sentencing Wednesday that they felt guilty for not coming forward sooner with their allegations.
"I apologize to the other victims," said one man who told the judge he was abused by McGuire for six years beginning in the late 1970s. "I apologize that I didn't come forward."
Many of those who testified also asked McGuire to apologize to them, which Pallmeyer noted the former priest didn't do.
McGuire has maintained his innocence throughout the trial. At the hearing, he told the judge he would continue to pray for everyone connected to the trial and spoke of being near the end of his life.
"I see that horizon, it's heaven, where every tear will be wiped away," he said.
McGuire would have to serve most of his sentence before he is eligible for release.
West Coast cases filed
In other developments, a Portland, Ore., man has filed a $4 million lawsuit against the Franciscan Friars of California, alleging childhood sexual abuse by a priest.
In an unrelated lawsuit seeking $3.25 million, a pastor for the Oregon Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and its Roseburg Junior Academy was accused of sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl in 1992.
The complaints were filed by Portland lawyer Kelly Clark, one of the lead attorneys in a number of sexual abuse cases against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland that ended in a $50 million settlement in 2007. Three years earlier, the archdiocese was the first in the nation to declare bankruptcy.
Calls to Franciscan officials were not immediately returned Wednesday.
An Adventist spokeswoman referred calls to an attorney, who was not immediately available.
The lawsuit against the Franciscan Friars, a Catholic order, was filed Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
A 62-year-old man listed only by his initials alleges he was abused as a teenager by Father Claude Riffel at the St. Francis Minor Seminary in Troutdale, east of Portland, in the early 1960s.
According to the lawsuit, Riffel was dean of discipline for the school when he would call the teenager out of class on the pretext of assigning work and then abuse him.
In a statement released with the lawsuit, Clark noted the Franciscan Friars of California is an independent Catholic organization unaffiliated with any diocese.
The lawsuit against the Adventist pastor, who was identified only by his initials, alleges he took the 5-year-old girl to an isolated area of the Roseburg Junior Academy during a "week of prayer" and abused her.
Clark called the case "one of the worst I have seen."
The girl is now 21 and attends community college, he said.
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