Trial Begins for Former Johnstown Pastor Accused of Traveling to Honduras to Molest Young Boys
By Torsten Ove
The Rev. Joseph Maurizio was the “money man” on trips to a Honduran orphanage and plied the street children there with cash to get them to engage in sex acts with him, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday. On the opening day of Father Maurizio’s sex trial in U.S. District Court in Johnstown, Justice Department lawyer Amy Larson told the jury that Father Maurizio bragged about his money as the largest donor for the ProNino orphanage and as such had “unfettered access” to the 80 at-risk teens there. In her opening statement she said he talked of the “golden rule,” quoting him as saying “he who has the gold makes the rule,” and asked the jurors not to judge the boys who accepted cash from him in exchange for letting him fondle them or photograph them nude. They were poor street children, she said, many of them addicted to drugs and living in a country rife with corruption, violence and destitution. “What those boys did, they did for survival,” she said. “What he did was criminal. He needs to be held accountable.” Father Maurizio’s lawyer, Steven P. Passarello, countered that his client has been falsely accused and that the government can’t prove he molested anyone. Yes, he said, Father Maurizio had money, but that’s not a crime. “Father Joseph Maurizio is one of the good priests,” he said, pointing out that his client is a Navy veteran who has received commendations from the government for his charity work. To bolster his argument that Father Maurizio did not molest boys, he said the FBI investigated the allegations in 2009 and took no action. The case wasn’t pursued until the U.S. Department of Homeland Security began its own investigation in 2013 and sent agents to Honduras to do forensic interviews of the victims. “[The FBI] interviewed the same exact victims, witnesses, and you know what? They closed the case,” he said. He also told the jury that although sex abuse of children is one of the most vile of crimes, so is falsely accusing someone of committing it. Father Maurizio, 70, the suspended pastor at Our Lady Queen of Angels in Somerset County, is accused of traveling to Honduras repeatedly between 2004 and 2009 to molest teenage boys under the guise of doing missionary work. He is also charged with possession of child pornography and transferring money into and out of the country to facilitate his trips. Three government witnesses took the stand after opening arguments, mostly to lay a foundation for the main event, which will be the testimony of the alleged victims next week. Laura Long-Valdez, a former student at St. Francis College and now a Delta Airlines flight attendant in Georgia, and Kimberly Knapp, a member of Our Lady Queen of Angels who runs her own charity for Honduran teens, were volunteers for Father Maurizio’s nonprofit, Humanitarian Interfaith Ministries, on trips to Honduras. Both said they grew suspicious of Father Maurizio and what was happening at the ProNino mission complex. Ms. Knapp said that she and her husband stopped going to the mission in 2006 because they were concerned about where their monetary contributions were ending up. She said that when they helped build a bakery on the grounds, receipts for the materials showed it cost just $900 to build but that Father Maurizio would say in sermons back home at his church that it cost $35,000. Ms. Knapp also said she was concerned that Father Maurizio bought and drank alcohol at the mission even though many of the boys there were recovering substance abuse addicts. “He displayed a lot of drunkenness on all the trips,” Ms. Knapp said, although on cross-examination she said she never witnessed him sexually abusing children. Molly Rock, the lead Homeland Security agent who investigated the case, testified briefly at the end of the day and will resume today. Torsten Ove: tove@post-gazette.com. First Published September 10, 2015 12:40 PM
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