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	Ex-Priest in Long I. Perv Bust By Kieran Crowley and Ed Robinson New York Post [Long Island NY] March 22, 2006 http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/65816.htm March 22, 2006 -- A former priest tried to solicit sex from an undercover Long Island cop posing on the Internet as a 14-year-old boy, Nassau police said yesterday. Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., had held several online conversations with the undercover officer dating back to September 2004. He traveled to Long Island yesterday to meet with the supposed teen with the intention of taking him to a hotel room, cops said. Instead he was arrested and charged with an attempted criminal sex act and attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor. He is expected to be arraigned today. A priest with the same name plead guilty in 1988 to molesting a teenage altar boy over a six year period in Bally, Pa. That teen's family later filed suit against the diocese of Allentown claiming its officials Bender harmed children and did nothing to prevent it. The suit was settled out of court, and Bender left the priesthood.
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