Arrest warrant issued for defrocked priest in '05 abuse case

By Carlos Sadovi
Chicago Tribune
May 21, 2014

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-arrest-warrant-issued-for-defrocked-priest-in-05-abuse-case-20140521,0,1172242.story

Rev. Daniel McCormack (center,) arrives at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building (26th and California) Monday, July 2, 2007, in Chicago.

A defrocked priest who had been convicted of abusing several children at his West Side parish was arrested today after a warrant was issued regarding a new allegation stemming from a 2005 incident, police said.

Daniel McCormack, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to multiple counts of criminal sexual assault and was sentenced to five years in prison, was taken into custody after a warrant for aggravated criminal sexual abuse was served, according to Chicago police.

He is expected to appear in bond court in the Leighton Criminal Courts Building on Thursday regarding the new allegation, said Sally Daly, spokeswoman for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. The newest allegation involves a 10-year-old boy at his former West Side parish.

McCormack, 45, pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse to children under the age of 13, according to Illinois Department of Corrections.

According to court records, the latest warrant was issued by Cook County Criminal Court Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan on May 16. According to Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman Tom Shaer, McCormack was paroled in 2009 to the Illinois Department of Human Services Treatment and Detention Facility in Rushville.

Court records show that the warrant was served at the Rushville facility. McCormak has been confined to the mental health facility while a petition to keep him committed indefinitely to state custody under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act is considered by a Cook County judge. His next hearing in that matter is June 12, before Cook County Judge Dennis Porter.

In February, three unidentified young men filed suits against the Catholic bishop of Chicago, the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Francis George after they claimed McCormack abused them.

The men claim the archdiocese and the others were negligent in allowing McCormack to work with young boys unsupervised when they knew or should have known that he had a history of sexually abusing minors.

All three plaintiffs were members of the basketball team at Our Lady of the Westside School and were abused by McCormack at different times spanning 2000 to 2005, according to a lawyer for the men. A $3.15 million settlement was announced in January involving a sex-abuse victim who said McCormack abused him in 2002 at the same school.