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	Ex-Fenwick Chaplain Pleads to Sex Charges By Tom Dalton The Salem News [Massachusetts] April 26, 2006 http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/05/snstory.pl? -sec-morning+1k589g0+fn-priest26-20060426- A former North Shore priest facing the possibility of a lengthy prison sentence admitted this week that he sexually abused three boys more than 25 years ago. The Rev. James W. Nyhan, 60, former chaplain at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody, pleaded guilty in a Charleston, S.C., court to three counts of committing a lewd act on a minor. He entered the plea on Monday, the day his trial was scheduled to start. He was sentenced to 10 years on each count, but the judge then suspended the sentence and placed Nyhan on probation for five years. In brief remarks in court, Nyhan said he was sorry for his actions during 1979 and 1980, when he was stationed at the Church of the Nativity in South Carolina. "I feel badly this colored my otherwise fruitful stay in Charleston," Nyhan said. Two of the victims said the comments showed little remorse. "It was pathetic," one man said. "I still feel that maybe he thinks he didn't do that much harm," the other said. In the Boston Archdiocese, where Nyhan served most of his career, he has been on administrative leave for more than three years, which means he cannot function publicly as a priest. He was placed on leave in 2002, when he was pastor of a Billerica church, following an allegation of sexual abuse by a Quincy man who said Nyhan molested him in the 1970s at a Dorchester church. Now that Nyhan has pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a minor, he is expected to be defrocked, or removed from the priesthood, according to archdiocesan policy. Nyhan committed the lewd acts on three 13-year-old boys, who were altar boys or part of a Catholic youth organization, at the South Carolina church, according to a lawyer in the case. Some of the abuse took place in the church rectory. "He would get into wrestling matches with the boys and end up rubbing on their bodies" to arouse himself sexually, said Debbie Herring-Lash, assistant solicitor for Charleston County. He also admitted fondling two of the boys at Folly Beach in Charleston, she said. Attempts to reach Nyhan and his attorney yesterday were unsuccessful. Nyhan now lives in California, Herring-Lash said. As part of the plea agreement, the priest will undergo sex abuse counseling and must avoid contact with children, other than members of his own family. Nyhan will not have to register as a sex offender. The three victims agreed to the plea deal. "The men really gave it thoughtful consideration," Herring-Lash said. "They had never been asking for prison time. They had always just wanted him to acknowledge what he did, to get treatment, not to be able to work in any capacity where children would be involved ... and to put closure to this part of their lives." Law enforcement officials were able to prosecute Nyhan because South Carolina has no statute of limitations on criminal conduct, according to the Charleston County Sheriff's Office. The priest surrendered three years ago after being charged with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, a misdemeanor back in 1979 but a felony today. In 1994, church officials in Boston investigated allegations made by one of the South Carolina victims and found "insufficient evidence," according to church files. The Archdiocese of Boston's review board closed the case in 1997. The 100-plus pages in Nyhan's file contain three allegations, but none led to disciplinary action until the 2002 suspension. Nyhan served at Bishop Fenwick from 1983 to 1994 while living at the rectory at St. Mary's Italian Church in Salem. Even after leaving the school, he remained close to the Fenwick community, returning often for events or to see old friends. When he left Fenwick, the school established a scholarship in his honor. Ordained in 1973, Nyhan served as a juvenile court chaplain in Dorchester until taking a one-year leave in 1979 to go to South Carolina.
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