Priest Accused of Abuse at Midway Airport Is Acquitted

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Chicago Tribune
September 17, 2013

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-priest-accused-of-abuse-at-midway-airport-is-acquitted-20130917,0,2826117.story

Bede R. Jagoe (Chicago police / September 17, 2013)

A Cook County judge acquitted a 79-year-old Roman Catholic priest of sexually abusing a traveler who stopped to worship at the chapel inside Midway Airport before boarding a flight to Kansas City.

According to the priest’s attorney Irv Miller, the Rev. Bede Jagoe arrived at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Monday in an ambulance and watched from a gurney as his accuser testified that the priest touched him inappropriately and tried to kiss him in an elevator back in December 2011.

Judge Nicholas Ford said surveillance video didn’t corroborate the accuser’s testimony, Miller said.

Since the alleged incident in December 2011, Jagoe suffered several strokes, said Bill Skowronski, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Dominican Friars Central Province, who added that the province was pleased the priest lived long enough to see his name cleared in court.

Ordained in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1960, Jagoe served the first 23 years of his clerical career as a missionary in Nigeria. He served in a variety of leadership roles around the Midwest before becoming a chaplain for the Chicago Airports Catholic Chaplaincy in May 2005.

“Fr. Jagoe celebrated Mass up to five days a week as part of his ministry at Midway airport and often stayed longer to speak to attendants afterwards despite being semi-retired,” Skowronski said.

Prosecutors, who charged Jagoe with criminal sexual abuse and aggravated battery in a public place, said the priest and a traveler were in an airport elevator leaving the chapel when Jagoe told the man he was attracted to him. The priest tried to kiss him on the mouth, then “grabbed (the victim's) testicles,” prosecutors said. The man and his wife testified Monday that he boarded his flight and, after returning home, told his wife who then called Chicago police.

Within hours of the verdict, Dominican Prior Provincial Charles E. Bouchard reinstated Jagoe as a “priest in good standing,” Skowronski said.

“We take allegations of sexual misconduct very seriously,” Bouchard said in a statement. “But there are instances of false or unsubstantiated claims. We’re glad that in this case, Fr. Jagoe’s name was cleared by the court.”

Contact: mbrachear@tribune.com