Group Wants Larger Investigation of Greek Orthodox Priest

By John Futty
Columbus Dispatch
October 2, 2012

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/10/02/Group_wants_larger_investigation_of_pedophile_Greek_Orthodox_priest.html

A group that advocates for the victims of sexual abuse by priests wants a more thorough investigation of a Greek Orthodox priest who pleaded guilty last week to seeking sex with boys.

The case of Patrick N. Hughes, known as Father Nicholas, deserves closer scrutiny in light of concerns expressed by a fellow cleric in Ashland County, according to members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

The group's Columbus director, Carol Zamonski, hand-delivered a letter to Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien today, asking him "to seek out and offer encouragement to others with knowledge of or suspicions about Hughes' misdeeds or the Greek Orthodox hierarchy's complicity."

She also released a copy of a recent letter in which a Greek Orthodox priest told a church official that he and others have been worried about Hughes for years.

The letter was sent on Sept. 22 by Ambrose Young, chaplain for a woman's monastery in Hayesville, to George Callos, the chancellor for the Metropolis of Pittsburgh, which oversees the region that includes central Ohio.

"We have been for a long time very concerned and troubled about Father Nicholas and his behaviors and the kinds of things he was saying to laypeople and even to brother monastics in the past, all of which was reported" to the metropolis, Young wrote three days after Hughes' arrest.

O'Brien said today that he reviewed the letter last week and told SNAP in an email that it contained no evidence of a felony crime.

Hughes, who was the acting dean of the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral in the Short North, was sentenced to six years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to one count of attempted rape. He admitted that he ran an Internet ad seeking "taboo sex with no age restrictions," then agreed to meet an undercover deputy posing as someone who would provide two boys, ages 9 and 14, for sex.

When Hughes was arrested and when he was sentenced, law-enforcement officials in Franklin County encouraged any victims to come forward, O'Brien said.

Sheriff Zach Scott, whose Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested Hughes, said his office made repeated requests, through the news media, for anyone victimized by Hughes to contact them.

"We got no phone calls," he said. "None."

A search of Hughes' laptop and his motel room also failed to reveal evidence of any victims, he said.

Father Ambrose Young told The Dispatch that his concerns about Hughes began four years ago with comments from monks at a Galion monastery founded by Hughes who "saw signs of possible Internet porn and other indications of a secret life" by the priest.

But he never heard allegations that Hughes had sexually assaulted anyone or had an interest in boys, he said.

Contact: jfutty@dispatch.com