News Times
September 22, 2006
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1015841
A fired high school administrator and defrocked Episcopal priest, captured in April after being on the run for months in places as distant as Malaysia, pleaded guilty Wednesday to molesting one of his teenage students.
Bruce Jacques, a 57-year-old former priest at St. John's Episcopal Church in New Milford, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal sex act in the third degree, admitting he performed oral sex on a 16-year-old boy, first inside his Manhattan school and two hours later in Central Park.
He had been charged with criminal sexual acts in the third degree, endangering the welfare of a child, sexual abuse in the third degree and statutory fellatio.
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| An undated photo of Bruce Jacques, a former New Milford priest. |
Mr. Jacques, the divorced father of two, resigned as the rector at St. John's in New Milford in June 1995 in the face of allegations he had sexually propositioned a 13-year-old boy, offering oral sex as a confirmation gift.
The incident split the local St. John's parish, with some members supporting the priest and others demanding that he be defrocked.
Three years later, after an investigation, he was defrocked by the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut for conduct unbecoming a priest.
Mr. Jacques entered the plea on Wednesday in exchange for a sentence of one to three years in prison. Had he been convicted at trial, he would have faced a sentence of 2 2/3 to eight years. State Supreme Court Justice Rena Uviller set Oct. 18 for sentencing.
Assistant District Attorney Kerry O'Connell had said in April, shortly after Mr. Jacques was captured, that he had been returned to New York after being caught trying to sneak into the United States from British Columbia on Canada's west coast.
Ms. O'Connell said then that Jacques had spent most of his time as a fugitive in Malaysia. She told the court that investigators knew he was in Malaysia because he frequently used his e-mail account, and officials were able to track him.
The charges against Mr. Jacques were reportedly related to acts he admittedly performed on the Robert Louis Stevenson School student on Oct. 20, 2005.
The school, which is located on West 74th Street, is a private secondary school for students with emotional problems and learning disabilities.
Ms. O'Connell said the boy had told a teacher what was going on and the teacher followed the student and Mr. Jacques from the school into the park. The teacher lost them in the park and did not see sexual activity, but back at the school he alerted the headmaster.
When Mr. Jacques returned, the teacher and the headmaster confronted him and "he was summarily fired" that day, Ms. O'Connell said in April. By the time police were called, Mr. Jacques had fled.
The student's parents have filed a lawsuit that is pending in Brooklyn's state Supreme Court against Mr. Jacques and the headmaster who hired him. The suit charges the defendants with negligence and recklessness in hiring the defrocked priest.
The school had hired Mr. Jacques in 2003 as a development director and fundraiser.
This story was written with reports from the Associated Press and Staff Writer Lynda Wellman.
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