Monahan's Attorney Denies Allegations of Bathroom Incident That LED to Charges
By John Schreier
A retired Council Bluffs priest, St. Albert volunteer chaplain and former principal was arrested last week on suspicion he was looking at the genitals of high school students in a public restroom. The Rev. Paul Monahan, 83, was charged on Thursday, Aug. 25, with five counts of invasion of privacy, a serious misdemeanor, according to online court records. He was released on his own recognizance the next day. When reached at home Monday afternoon, Monahan declined comment on the allegations. His attorney, Bill McGinn of Council Bluffs, said the allegations against Monahan were completely false and that his client would be pleading not guilty to the charges. Monahan was suspended on July 8 from all public ministries, according to the Diocese of Des Moines, pending the outcome of his legal proceedings. His preliminary hearing has been set for Friday, Sept. 16. The Daily Nonpareil first reported Monahan’s arrest online Friday evening, following a statement released by the Diocese of Des Moines provided to the newspaper by St. Albert Catholic School. The newspaper obtained court documents Monday, which were initially unavailable, outlining the details of his arrest. According to Monahan’s arrest affidavit, the alleged incident involved five male high-schoolers who were in the restroom during an April 4 track meet at Treynor High School that featured 11 area schools. The students, along with a witness, told authorities that Monahan, who was using the restroom at the time, stepped back to look at their genitals. When confronted by one of the students, Monahan reportedly left both the restroom and track meet hurriedly. They told authorities that Monahan had been seen hanging out in the vicinity of the restroom and had entered it between 10 and 12 times, according to court documents. Monahan told investigators he had no recollection of any confrontation with a student and had only used the restroom two or three times. Monahan was not acting in any official capacity in his role of a volunteer chaplain at St. Albert at the track meet, according to both Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker and Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber. Danker said the students who reported the alleged encounter didn’t identify Monahan as a priest; rather, the sheriff said they recorded his license plate number. None of the students who reported the incident attended St. Albert, Danker said. They attended a school outside Pottawattamie County that The Nonpareil is not identifying to protect the identities of the alleged victims. Danker said the first report was made a couple days after the track meet, but the sheriff’s office didn’t finish gathering witness statements until late June. Wilber said he was first notified of the allegations against Monahan in early July, and he told The Nonpareil he immediately informed St. Albert officials of the investigation. Within days, Monahan was suspended by the Diocese of Des Moines, which oversees the Council Bluffs school. The statute under which Monahan was charged, Iowa Code 709.21(1), defines a serious misdemeanor of invasion of privacy. The law relates to the viewing of an unknowing victim with a reasonable expectation of privacy who is in a state of partial or full nudity. The case will be tried by the Iowa Attorney General’s Office, not by local prosecutors. Wilber said his office elected to hand over prosecution of Monahan’s case to the state to ensure there would be no perception of a conflict of interest with the school’s close ties to the community. Wilber, for instance, served on a local nonprofit’s board of directors with Monahan in the past. Monahan, who was ordained in 1960 and retired in 2004, taught at Dowling Catholic High School in West Des Moines and St. Albert before becoming the school’s principal in 1975. Four years later, he left the school to serve as a priest in Catholic parishes in Weston, Avoca, Walnut, Council Bluffs and Glenwood. Contact: jschreier@nonpareilonline.com
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.