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	Fugitive Ex-Priest Caught Pastor Once Served New Milford Church By John Pirro The News-Times April 12, 2006 http://news.newstimeslive.com/story.php?id=82406&category=Local Twelve years after his son's charges against the pastor split the congregation of St. John's Episcopal Church in New Milford, Kevin Mcdougall feels a "bitter sense of vindication." "It's bitter because it came at the expense of another kid, who didn't escape as lightly as my son did," Mcdougall, who lives in Kent, said Tuesday. On Tuesday, Bruce Jacques, the former church pastor who McDougall's son said had offered him oral sex as a confirmation gift, was arraigned in a Manhattan courtroom for performing a sex act on a 16-year-old boy in Central Park last October. Jacques, 57, had been on the run for six months. He was arrested Sunday after he was caught Sunday trying to sneak into the United States from British Columbia on Canada's west coast. A prosecutor said Jacques spent most of his time as a fugitive in Malaysia. In 1994, Mcdougall's then-13-year-old son claimed that Jacques had propositioned him. The family brought their complaint to the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut. Diocese officials said Jacques, who had been pastor since 1984, could remain at the church provided he receive counseling. So the Mcdougalls went public with the charge. "I think it destroyed our congregation. There were people who believed (the charges) and people who didn't," said parishioner Pat Erickson said. "Many people left over it." The many included the Mcdougall family. "We had a lot of people upset with what we did," said Mcdougall's former wife, Daryl Blinn. "People didn't believe what we were saying." Eventually, Jacques was defrocked as a priest and forced to resign from St. John's. A lawsuit he filed against the Mcdougalls, and their countersuit against him, were settled out of court. Jacques became a director of development at the Robert Louis Stevenson School, a private school in New York City. Kerry O'Connell, an assistant district attorney in New York City, said the charge against Jacques is related to a sexual act he allegedly performed on a Stevenson school student in Central Park on Oct. 20, 2005. The prosecutor said Jacques had previously molested the 16-year-old youth inside the West 74th Street school, but that day told the teen to meet him in the park. Meanwhile, the boy told a teacher what was going on, and the teacher followed them. The teacher lost the two in Central Park, but back at the school the teacher and the headmaster confronted Jacques and "he was summarily fired" that day, O'Connell said. By the time police were contacted, Jacques had fled, he said. O'Connell said investigators knew Jacques was in Malaysia because he frequently used his Internet e-mail account and they were able to track him. New York Judge Neil E. Ross ordered Jacques held without bail and scheduled his next court date for Friday. Jacques' lawyer, Reginald Haley, had asked the judge to set "reasonable" bail because of his client's limited finances. When Ross asked whether Jacques was denying the allegation that he had fled to avoid prosecution, the lawyer replied, "Not at this time." The student's parents, meanwhile, filed a lawsuit against the defrocked priest, the headmaster who hired him and the school. The suit charges the defendants with negligence and recklessness in hiring Jacques. Erickson, who now attends St. John's in New Milford only sporadically, blamed Episcopal church officials for mishandling the situation. Jacques "should have been defrocked immediately," she said. "These kids think that of all the people in the world they can go to and trust, the priest is the safety spot."
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