By Frank Eltman
Associated Press
March 12, 2003

Mineola, NY - A Long Island priest already jailed for molesting a teenager in neighboring Suffolk County was sentenced Wednesday by a Nassau County judge to six months in jail for abusing the same boy while the priest was assigned to a church in East Meadow.

The jail term against the Rev. Michael Hands will run concurrently with the Suffolk County sentence that was issued last week. His jail term will be followed by five years probation.

Hands, 36, was given two consecutive one-year sentences after the priest pleaded guilty last month to a pair of sodomy charges stemming from sexual relations he had with the boy while he was assigned to St. Philip Neri Church in Northport. He pleaded guilty in a Nassau County courtroom last year to five counts of sodomy and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, admitting that he also had sex with the boy in his living quarters at the St. Raphael Rectory in East Meadow.

The relationship began in 1999 and lasted for a little more than a year.

At his sentencing on Wednesday, Hands said he took responsibility for his actions, although he repeated his contention that part of his problems stemmed from his own alleged abuse by a priest while he was a teenager.

"I repent of my actions. I am committed to never, never repeating such actions," Hands told Nassau County Court Judge Donald DeRiggi. "Humbly, I ask forgiveness."

Hands has submitted his resignation as a priest to the Vatican.

DeRiggi, who noted he was a Catholic, said he found it "incomprehensible" that a priest would engage in such actions against a teenager. 'I have to tell you I always thought that the love of Jesus Christ was enough" for a priest, DeRiggi said. "This whole revelation is certainly shocking to all of us."

DeRiggi added later: "Maybe the assumptions we have about priests have to be reevaluated."

The victim, who gave an impassioned statement before Hands was sentenced last week, did not attend Wednesday's sentencing.

Defense attorney Peter Rubin said after the sentencing that Hands stands by his claim that he was abused by another priest as a teenager when he was a student at Holy Trinity High School in Hicksville.

Newsday reported on Wednesday that the priest, Msgr. Charles Ribaudo, the former pastor of St. Dominic's in Oyster Bay, asserted in an e-mail dated March 5 that he never had a "sexual relationship" with any students while serving as chaplain at the high school in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the e-mail, Ribaudo said he chose to respond now "because I can't handle all the personal calls and letters or the stress and confusion that my silence has caused among my friends and in the Oyster Bay community."

Bishop William Murphy of the Rockville Centre Diocese, acting in response to the allegations, ordered Ribaudo to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. In March 2002, Murphy suspended Ribaudo, who then decided to retire.

"My client stands by his grand jury testimony," Rubin said Wednesday. "The grand jury obviously believed my client."