Ex-bronx Priest Dodges Sex Abuse Charges after Allegedly Molesting 15-year-old Boy in 1980

By Thomas Tracy
New York Daily News
June 2, 2017

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/ex-bronx-priest-dodges-charges-sexually-abusing-boy-1980-article-1.3214216

Police sources said no criminal charges will be brought against the Rev. Anthony Giuliano, who had been accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy at Holy Rosary Church in Baychester in the 1980s. (CHEVRESTT, ANGEL/ANGEL CHEVRESTT, FREELANCE)

A sex abuse investigation involving a former Bronx priest has been quietly closed with no charges filed, the Daily News has learned.

Police sources said no criminal charges will be brought against the Rev. Anthony Giuliano, who had been accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy at Holy Rosary Church in Baychester in the 1980s.

“All the leads in the investigation were exhausted,” a police source said. “It was not determined that a crime had taken place.”

Even if detectives found enough evidence to warrant charges, Giuliano couldn’t be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases in New York — meaning the alleged crime committed by the man of the cloth would forever go unpunished.

Victims of child sex abuse have until age 23 to bring a criminal or civil case.

The Daily News launched a campaign last year to pressure officeholders to support the Child Victims Act.

Archbishop of New York Timothy Cardinal Dolan has offered seven man abused by priests nearly $2 million through a settlement program. (HOWARD SIMMONS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

The accuser told Bronx Special Victims Squad detectives that he was working in the church rectory between 1987 and 1988 when Giuliano befriended him. They used to play wrestle, he said.

During one session, the priest allegedly told him to lie down on the ground, pulled the teen’s pants and underwear down and molested him, police sources said.

Giuliano was running two parishes in Dutchess County — about 85 miles from Manhattan — in August when his victim, now 43, told cops what happened.

“This is a shock,” the priest told the Daily News when the allegations surfaced. “It never happened.”

As a result, Giuliano was removed from the churches and prohibited from acting as a priest, officials from the New York Archdiocese said.

“The entire matter has to be carefully reviewed by the archdiocesan Lay Review Board,” spokesman Joseph Zwilling said. “That takes some time to complete.”

Until the review is done, Giuliano is prohibited from working as a priest, Zwilling said.

Giuliano hung up on a reporter when reached for comment Thursday. His alleged victim also did not return a call for comment.

So far, seven men abused by priests have been paid nearly $2 million total through a settlement program founded by Timothy Cardinal Dolan. The abuse survivors were all part of phase one of the settlement program, which was restricted to victims who had made previously documented allegations of abuse to the archdiocese. Phase two, which is open to anyone who was allegedly abused as a child by a priest or deacon in the Archdiocese of New York, is underway and has a July 31 deadline.