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	Ex-Priest Busted in Kiddie Sex Sting By Tara Conry New York Daily News [Long Island NY] March 23, 2006 http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/402259p-340563c.html Equipped with gummy bears, lubricant and gay porn, a defrocked Pennsylvania priest was ready for sex with a boy but instead got busted by an undercover cop, police said. Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Hempstead on five counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of attempting to commit a criminal sexual act. Since September 2004, cops said, he engaged in online conversations with a detective who was posing as a teenager. "During that year, he was grooming the boy - or who he thought was a 14-year-old boy," said Detective Sgt. Lucy Graziano of the Nassau County Police. "He was building a relationship through trust." For a year, the conversations remained innocent, with Bender asking the boy about family, his hobbies and his favorite candy. But in October 2005, he began slipping sexual comments into his instant messages and e-mails, and soon asked to meet the boy, police said. On three separate occasions, he scheduled meetings, but canceled because he feared his online buddy might be a cop, Graziano said. He finally let down his guard Tuesday, when he agreed to meet at an undisclosed location in Nassau County and fell into the trap set by Nassau County police. In his car, police found three packs of candy, condoms, a camera, KY jelly and a case of Beck's beer. They also seized his laptop, which will be used in the investigation to see if Bender targeted any other youngsters online. Detectives also are working with law enforcement in Pennsylvania and the Catholic Church, which removed Bender from the priesthood after he was convicted of abusing a teenage boy in the mid-1980s. Bender's bail was set at $200,000 bond or $100,000 cash.
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