By Susan Szalewski
The World-Herald
November 23, 2010
http://www.omaha.com/article/20101123/NEWS97/711239886/0
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| Rev. John M. Fiala |
A former Omaha priest involved in a sexual assault case in Texas has been charged with trying to hire someone to murder his accuser.
The Texas Rangers and Texas state troopers arrested the Rev. John M. Fiala on Thursday after he negotiated a murder arrangement with an undercover officer at his home in Garland, Texas, a Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman told the San Antonio Express-News.
Fiala is being held on $700,000 bail in the Dallas County, Texas, jail on one count of solicitation to commit murder and two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, jail records show.
The sexual assault charges were part of indictments released last week in Howard County, Texas, according to the Express-News. Fiala faces a total of six charges involving his teenage accuser, who is now 18 and who would have been 16 when the alleged assaults occurred.
Authorities began investigating Fiala on Nov. 11, after a neighbor told them that Fiala had offered him $5,000 to kill the boy, Sheriff Don Letsinger of Edwards County, Texas, told the San Antonio newspaper.
In September, the 52-year-old priest was accused of sexually assaulting the youth at gunpoint in a hotel room and during private catechism sessions two years ago. The abuse was reported to have occurred in 2007 and 2008, when Fiala was serving at a parish in Rocksprings, Texas, which is in the Archdiocese of San Antonio.
Fiala was ordained in Omaha in 1984 and ministered in the Omaha Archdiocese until 1996, when he left to join the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity in Texas.
He served at these parishes in the Archdiocese of Omaha from 1984 to 1996: St. Columbkille, Papillion; Sacred Heart, Norfolk; St. Joan of Arc, St. Peter and Christ the King, all Omaha; St. Mary, Spencer; and St. Joseph, Wisner. He surprised St. Joseph parishioners when he departed that church suddenly.
Fiala was removed from ministry in the fall of 2008 and has not been reassigned, according to the Archdiocese of Omaha.
An attorney for Fiala's accuser told the San Antonio Express-News that his client was relieved that Fiala was in custody again and that Fiala had threatened to physically harm or kill the teen before.
The lawyer filed a lawsuit last spring over the sexual assault allegations that included the archdioceses of Omaha and San Antonio and Fiala's religious order, saying all three entities tried to cover up Fiala's record of abuse, which all three have denied, the San Antonio paper said.
At a hearing Monday, a judge rejected the Omaha archdiocese's argument that Texas was not a proper jurisdiction for the lawsuit, the paper reported.
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402-444-1304, news@owh.com
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