Frank Genevieve, 52, formerly a Franciscan friar in upstate New York, pleaded guilty today to five counts of statutory rape in connection with incidents in Boston between 1977 and 1989, the Suffolk County DA's office announced.
In exchange for his plea, Genevieve had an 8-to-10-year sentence suspended. If he stays out of trouble for the next five years, he won't go to jail. As part of the sentence, he has to register as a sex offender, wear an ankle GPS bracelet and stay away from kids.
Prosecutors charged Genevieve would bring boys on trips to Boston, where he would then have his way with them:
Several months after meeting the first victim, Genevieve took him on an overnight trip to Boston, where they stayed in a rectory on Bennett Street in the North End. During that overnight, the defendant shared a bed with the victim. In that incident, the defendant sexually assaulted the victim as he tried to sleep.Evidence further suggests that Genevieve met his second victim through the parish when he was a child. In 1987, when the second victim was in his mid-teens, the defendant took him on a day trip to the Boston Aquarium in his car. Evidence suggested that while Genevieve was driving the motor vehicle, he reached over to the passenger side seat where the victim was sitting and began sexually assaulting him. Eventually, the defendant pulled his vehicle over to the side of the road and performed a sex act on the victim.
The defendant met his third victim between in 1980, when the victim was under the charge of the New York foster care system and resided in a group home for boys in Schenectady, N.Y., which was overseen by the parish. Evidence indicates that Genevieve, who was a supervisor there, had frequent interactions with the third victim during his stays there.
In 1981, when the victim was a young teenager, Genevieve drove him to Boston for an overnight trip in celebration of his confirmation. During the course of a two-night stay in Boston, evidence showed that the defendant at one point brought the victim to the back room of church, where he performed sex acts on him and sexually assaulted him
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Comments
I'm curious how someone who
By Neil Van Dyke
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 12:55am
I'm curious how someone who serially abused a position of authority to rape children entrusted to him... was able to get off with a suspended sentence. Did he come forward, driven by his conscience? Was it just a sweet plea bargain? Perk of being considered a "man of God"? A quick Google search doesn't say.
By the way, I don't see a link or cite for the quoted article.
Why no link
By adamg
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 8:45am
It was from a press release from the DA's office. They usually post those on their Web site, but didn't for some reason (in which case, I should've just posted the whole thing here). Looks like there is a link below, though.
NY priest pleads guilty to
By Anonymous
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 1:04am
NY priest pleads guilty to raping 3 teenage boy
It sure looks like DA Dan Conley decided to cut a deal for an eight year suspended sentence in return for a guilty plea. I hope that is exactly what the victims wanted because if they wanted the perpetrator to do jail time, then they were betrayed by the DA. I'm kind of surprised Conley did not say more about the victims than this:
what you have to do to be defrocked
By Anonymous
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 1:08am
No word on what consequences the Franciscans and/or Catholic Church will met out besides this:
The Franciscan Province of the Immaculate Conception, which oversees Franciscans, said previously that Genevieve was removed from active ministry in June 2002. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany said it did not supervise the priest because he was a member of the Franciscan order.
Apparently, he was not defrocked. I wonder what you have to do to be defrocked.
Sometimes
By Anonymous
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 1:10am
victims would prefer to not come forward and be identified. If that's the case, Conley may have had to offer a suspended sentence in order to get a guilty plea.
That said, the judge accepted it.
Maybe the churches that
By ShadyMilkMan
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 8:47am
Maybe the churches that enforce celebacy need to rethink it. They seem to attract alot of potential child molesters or people who become child molesters. Maybe if they opened the doors to noncelebate people they will find a better pool of applicants. I think when they find these bad apples they are reluctant to get rid of them unless theres overwelming evidence because there would be noone to replace them, and they had been asked to give up so much for the position that cutting them loose would leave them with almost nothing going for them (which isnt good for the moral of other priests/monks.) I think the solution is to make it a little more like a profession.
I feel the need to add a disclaimer. I am a semi relapsed Catholic which means I go to church sometimes but not very often. Ive become kind of disgruntled. The one saving grace with all these stories for me is I have known some really nice, great, non child molesting priests(that I know of) that really care about what they do. The priest at the church I currently sometimes go to is the funniest, most down to earth guy I know, so not all priests/monks in the church are bad people.
what we have here is
By Anonymous
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 10:26am
That's an interesting idea, that the church try to fix this problem. They have but what they've done is off the mark. What they have done is screen for homosexuals.
You see there are priests who have sex with women of the age of consent, priests who have sex with men of the age of consent, and priests who have sex with minors, statutory rape. It turns out that most people have particular sexual preferences.
Screening for homosexuals addresses only one of the three, priests who have sex with men of the age of consent. I found it astonishing when the church announced their new policy, that they could have confusion about the difference between a homosexual and a pedophile. You'd think they'd have consulted with a top academician. That said, Pope Benedict is working hard to meet with victims and apologizing for what had been done to them. He met with five from Boston on his last trip tot he US.
Homosexuals and pedophiles are not the same bird. Most men who are pedophiles were victims of a pedophile in their youth. They need to screen for victims of pedophilia.
Your solution, relaxing the celibacy requirement just makes it a-ok for priests who are attracted to women and men, to have sex. I don;t know, maybe that's a good idea but I don't think the Catholic Church is ready to agree. Plus your solutions doesn't address the 'priest rapes minor problem', which is what happened here.
Oh by the way, I'm not an expert on this, just interested in the problem because so many people have been hurt and the church has made a practice of protecting the perpetrators for decades. See Cardinal Law.
"What we have here is" a reference to a Jackie Gleason movie.
Well obviously my solution
By ShadyMilkMan
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 10:43am
Well obviously my solution wouldnt alloy men who have sex with men to become priests, after all the catholic church is against that so of course they wouldnt want their priests to engage in homosexual activity. Thats a whole other bird Id like to see them address at some point...
My solution is more along the lines of allowing priests to marry while following the frigid rules of the catholic church, so of course they wouldnt be able to have sex before marriage. Why extend a privledge to priests that normal laymen arent supposed to be engaged in? I just think that allowing men who are married or who may want to be married into the church would be beneficial as it would increase the numbers of people who want to be priests. If you increase the numbers you can start fully screening for pedophiles and kicking out those who they feel are in the midst of pedophilia. Currently the church has a numbers (not enough applicants) problem which leads to them relaxing the rules in order to maintain the ranks. They should relax a rule like the no marriage rule so they can fully and completely enforce an anti pedophilia rule without worrying about their numbers.
How many priests around here live in huge old rectories that were designed for many people people? I know of quite a few churches where the rectories have several extra rooms. Sure some churches would have a space issue for a priest with kids, but I think many have ample space for it.
Agreed....
By Route 66
Wed, 07/23/2008 - 3:38pm
The celibacy requirement is an important part of Catholic Tradition - that the priest, acting as Christ's representative on earth, must take a 'in it but not of it' approach to their human-ness. That doesn't always work because, as humans, we are flawed and are in constant need of reform.
This does not dismiss the heinousness of these crimes, nor the ham-handed manner in which the Church has responded. When it comes to the specific case of Cardinal Law, our local pols also need to be held accountable. No one wanted to be the one to go down in local history as the guy who sent Law to jail. If I recall, wasn't it an election year????
The Church has made changes in the screening process and has, due to current circumstance, begun seeing the validity of 'alternative candidates': men who come to the priesthood having had lives in the secular world, complete with previous work histories and families of their own. My old parish in Winthrop hosted a seminarian for a while last year who came into the priesthood as a widower with children and grandchildren. He'd been in the military as well as in education, and will make a great priest.
["What we have here is" a reference to a Jackie Gleason movie.] Isn't that part of the dialogue from "Cool Hand Luke"? Strother Martin played the corrupt sheriff.