By Laura Williams
NY Daily News
March 3, 2005

A defrocked priest convicted of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy should not be considered a dangerous sexual predator, according to testimony in a hearing yesterday.
The risk-assessment hearing was held in Suffolk Criminal Court in Riverhead to determine whether Michael Hands, 38, should be listed as a Level 2 or Level 3 sex offender.

Hands is listed as a Level 2 offender in Nassau, but Suffolk prosecutors want him classified Level 3 - at the highest risk for reoffending - in their county.

Hands served 15 months in jail after pleading guilty to sodomy and other charges in Nassau and Suffolk. He befriended the 14-year-old's family while serving as parish priest in Northport and later in East Meadow. Hands was employed by the Diocese of Rockville Centre at the time.

But Hands did not just abuse the 14-year-old, said prosecutor Donald Mates, who painted a portrait of a repeat, high-risk offender.

"He was trolling for more underage victims, visiting offshore Web sites, searching out sexual partners," Mates said.

The one witness for the defense, psychiatrist Richard Krueger, who has been treating Hands for a year, said Hands should be a Level 2 sex offender because by pleading guilty, Hands accepted responsibility for his crime, Krueger said, adding that the man has been getting regular treatment and is cooperating with his probation officers.

Also, he has exhibited "a proven ability to control himself," Krueger said, adding that Hands is in a long-term "adult relationship."

But Mates sought to lay out a pattern of abuse - from sexual explicit E-mail chats with young teens and looking at child pornography on the Internet to having oral sex with another underage boy and telling an admission to an investigator, "I just can't stop."

"Would that change your assessment?" Mates repeatedly asked Krueger. The doctor responded that none of these incidents would change his mind, because they were all part of a "cluster" of activity that occurred before Hands confessed and served his time.

Two prosecution witness are expected to testify when the hearing resumes next month.