Former Priest, an Omaha Native, Is Sentenced in Sex Assault

The World-Herald
December 4, 2014

http://www.omaha.com/news/crime/former-priest-an-omaha-native-is-sentenced-in-sex-assault/article_0cd9e9a8-7b94-11e4-acf0-475f1ba8dbba.html

A Texas jury on Tuesday sentenced a former Catholic priest and Omaha native who once served in Nebraska to 30 years in prison for the aggravated sexual assault of a 16-year-old, according to a report by a San Antonio television station.

John Fiala, 56, was already serving 60 years in a Texas prison after being convicted in 2012 in a murder-for-hire case. The new sentence will be added to his current prison term, said the KSAT12 report.

Fiala was a priest at a church in Rocksprings, Texas, in 2008 when the teen accused him of sexual molestation, said the news report. Fiala later tried to have the accuser killed by hiring a hit man, who turned out to be an undercover law enforcement officer.

Fiala was stripped of his priestly duties in 2008.

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.

In 2010, the Omaha Archdiocese paid an undisclosed amount to settle a civil lawsuit with an alleged sexual assault victim of Fiala’s. The man had accused the archdiocese of covering up sexual abuse of minors by Fiala.

The Omaha Archdiocese has said it was told in 2002 that Fiala had made sexual advances toward a child in the 1980s.

Deacon Tim McNeil, spokesman for archdiocese, said Wednesday that when the archdiocese received the complaint in 2002, it notified the Sarpy County Attorney’s Office and Fiala’s religious superior in Texas, as well as the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas, where Fiala was serving at the time.