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	Former St. John's Pastor Arrested Bruce Jacques Arraigned on Sex Count in N.Y. City By John Pirro New Milford Spectrum April 15, 2006 http://www.spectrum.newmilford.com/story.php?id=655263 It's been 12 years since allegations against the then-pastor of New Milford's St. John's Episcopal Church split the parish and ultimately led to his defrocking. On Tuesday, Bruce Jacques, the former St. John's pastor who in 1994 was accused of offering oral sex to a teenaged boy as a confirmation gift, was arraigned in a Manhattan courtroom for allegedly performing a sex act on a 16-year-old boy in Central Park last October. Twelve years after the local incident, Kevin Mcdougall — the father of the teen who made the charges against the Rev. Jacques — said he feels a "bitter sense of vindication" over the news of Mr. Jacques' arrest in New York City. "It's bitter because it came at the expense of another kid, who didn't escape as lightly as my son did," Mr. Mcdougall, who lives in Kent, said Tuesday. Mr. Jacques, 57, had apparently been on the run for six months. Officials said 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 Mr. Jacques spent most of those six months as a fugitive in Malaysia. In 1994, Mr. Mcdougall's then-13-year-old son claimed that his pastor had propositioned him, and the family brought their complaint to the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut. Diocese officials said Mr. 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," parishioner Pat Erickson said this week. "There were people who believed (the charges) and people who didn't. 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, Mr. 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. Mr. 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 Mr. Jacques is related to a sexual act he allegedly performed on a Stevenson school student in Central Park on Oct. 20, 2005. The prosecutor claimed Mr. Jacques had previously molested the 16-year-old youth inside the West 74th St. school, but that day he 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 Mr. Jacques and "he was summarily fired" that day, Mr. O'Connell said. By the time police were contacted, Mr. Jacques had fled, he said. Mr. O'Connell said investigators knew Mr. 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 Mr. Jacques held without bail and scheduled his next court date for today (Friday). Mr. Jacques' lawyer, Reginald Haley, had asked the judge to set "reasonable" bail because of his client's limited finances. When Mr. Ross asked whether Mr. 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 Mr. Jacques. Mrs. Erickson, who now attends St. John's in New Milford only sporadically, blamed Episcopal church officials for mishandling the situation. Mr. 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." The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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