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	Paedophile Priest Asked Victim's Parents to Pay Bail By Trish O'Dea One in Four October 15, 2006 http://www.oneinfour.org/news/news2006/paybail/ Convicted paedophile Oliver O'Grady asked the parents of one of his victims to go to their credit union and take out $4000 to pay his bail following his arrest back in 1993. They didn't know at the time that he had terrorised their little girl from the age of five to 12. The Limerick-born priest preyed on young boys and girls during the 70s and 80s in the diocese of Stockton in California. He admitted to abusing up to 25 young people. An award-winning documentary telling the story of the priest and his victims airs in the US this Friday. The mother of one of O'Grady's young victims, Ann Jyono, recently spoke about the horrific ordeal the Limerick priest put her family through. Maria Jyono, who has lived in California for most of her adult life, told of how, as a young mother new to the area in 1970, she was thrilled to meet another Irish person at her church and welcomed O'Grady practically into her family. "He was a friend of mine for 23 years; he was almost like a brother to me. His mother, his brothers and his sisters used to come and stay with us when they came on vacation and he would come to Ireland and stay with my family." "Ollie", as Maria called him, sometimes stayed at the Jyono household. Their friendship remained fast until the mid-1980s when O'Grady was transferred out of the diocese. Still, they spoke regularly by phone and Maria was surprised when, in 1993, she heard nothing from him for about four weeks. "He called and said he had been transferred to a retreat house in Citrus Heights. He said he was 'taken out' of the church. He said he couldn't leave there unless he had someone to collect him. There was a problem. And that's all he said. "We went down and collected him and he spent the night. He told us that there were allegations against him for touching." Quizzed by Maria and her husband Bob, the priest denied doing anything inappropriate to children, saying only that he had had a problem back in the 1980s but that he had gone for counselling. The couple were dumbfounded, and the pieces began to fall into place when Maria went to her place of work the following Monday to be met by awkward silence from her colleagues, who knew how well she knew O'Grady. They had seen the newspapers, where details of allegations and pending charges were revealed. Maria was distraught but it still took her a couple of days to even consider the possibility that he may have abused her child. When the couple rang Ann, she hung up when they mentioned O'Grady's name. Finally, she told her parents what had happened. Her mother said: "That was the most awful night of my life." Months of counselling later, it emerged that O'Grady had abused her in her bedroom from age five to 12. She had, she told her devastated father, at one stage what would happen if her father killed someone. The friend said that, in California, he would go to prison for life. The little girl was also terrified of her abuser and had been told that what was happening was God's will and perfectly natural. She is still finding it very difficult to come to terms with what happened – and had told no one until the story of O'Grady's catalogue of abuse broke when she was 27 years old. The family are speaking out now because O'Grady is living in Ireland and has seemed unrepentant and arrogant in a televised deposition recently aired in the US, and in interviews by journalist Amy Berg in Friday night's documentary. In the States, the story is gathering momentum with allegations against Cardinal Mahoney – then Bishop of Stockton – for covering up the abuse. Seeing it as about the only way they can salvage something from what has happened to them, the Jyonos have gone on the offensive. Marie recently spoke to a group of 64 priests about the devastating effect this ultimate abuse of trust has. "I did it for my daughter and for all the other kids out there. I told them that if you ever, ever think about it, you leave the priesthood, do whatever you have to do, but leave our kids alone.
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