Abusers come in all shapes and sizes. If you’ve ever heard someone say, “He’s in a wheelchair. He couldn’t hurt anybody.” or “The guy is old and frail. If ever he was a threat to kids, he’s surely not now.” How about, “He’s a bald, slow-moving, stoop-shouldered old man who can barely hear anymore. You seriously think kids are at risk around him?”
We at Horowitz Law hear these kinds of comments about elderly men accused of molesting kids. It’s always depressing when we do because remarks like this show a fundamental ignorance about how and by whom child sex crimes are committed. To rob a bank, you need a gun and a ski mask. To snatch a purse, you need to be strong and fast. To steal a car, you need some tools and some skills. But to molest a girl or boy, all you really need is cunning. In other words, your real weapon is nothing physical or material. It’s a shrewd, devious mind.
And even a man who moves slowly, or seems a bit weak, or is wheelchair-bound can be clever enough to entice young Sally to approach him, sit on his lap, or let him hug her only to go even further then and shove his tongue in her mouth. Or cunning enough to lure young Billy to come over to him to help him with something and then shove his hands down the boy’s shorts. He may not be able to screw off the lid of a jar of ketchup. That does NOT mean he’s not able to hurt an unsuspecting kid.
He may have lost his ability to play sports, exercise, or carry luggage. That does NOT mean he’s lost his overpowering urge to assault a child and to use everything he’s learned from a lifetime of fooling both adults and kids. Furthermore, people who say and believe that a decrepit, elderly man can’t abuse a youngster often don’t even consider that such a man may well be exaggerating his condition. Predators often do this in court, showing up with a walker or in a wheelchair, pretending to be permanently incapacitated or severely injured. Or they feign dementia or other intellectual difficulties.
Take abusive priest Fr. William J. Dugal of Joliet, Illinois. Since 2013, he’s been on the official Joliet Diocese’s list of ‘credibly accused’ abusive clergy. In 2023, he was included in the Illinois attorney general’s investigative report on Catholic child sex crimes and cover-ups. But since he was a young man, he’s spent his life in a wheelchair. Among his assignments, he was the chaplain at Driscoll Catholic High School in Addison. He also spent time at Provena St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet.
Or take the highest-ranking US Catholic official to ever face criminal charges for child sex crimes, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. As we wrote here almost a year ago:
“A recent headline in the Washington Post sends chills down the spine: “Ex-cardinal McCarrick’s sex assault case in Wisconsin appears to be dead.” Interestingly, this is a criminal case and not a civil one. If won, it would mark McCarrick as the first US prelate to be incarcerated for child molestation. He also victimized young adults, but now the possibilities of the case proceeding and leading to a conviction seem bleak. According to both his defense lawyer and an expert witness, McCarrick, in his present condition, is too senile and unfit to attend a trial. Or so they say.”
Similarly, Fr. Lawrence Hecker of New Orleans is now awaiting trial. But Fr. Hecker is 92 years old. Will he, too, successfully escape consequences for his crimes by becoming – or convincing others that he has become – too incapacitated to face his accusers in court? In the same blog, we noted that “there are multiple examples where predator priests have managed to escape the law due to their age and supposedly failing health.” Here are just two of them:
- Fr. Edward Kelley of Rhode Island was deemed “unable to understand or assist in the proceedings against him because “his dementia is permanent and so severe that he only knows his own name. “
- Fr. Joseph Kelleher, an Irish priest who was accused of abuse in North Carolina, got off scot-free when a judge there determined that the cleric didn’t have the mental capacity to go to trial. At the time, Fr. Kelleher was 86 years old.
We highlighted a particularly disturbing and deceitful case of a Massachusetts predator, Fr. John Szantyr, a priest accused of sexually abusing two boys. Szantyr made a theatrical appearance in court in a wheelchair, claiming to be too sick to stand trial because of his mental decline. But the judge, according to a local newspaper columnist, should have been “a bit more skeptical of the incompetence claims given that Fr. Szantyr pulled a shameless stunt by showing up in court in a wheelchair he didn’t need in September 2006.” How could the writer be so sure? Here are a few jaw-dropping paragraphs:
“While Fr. Szantyr sat slouched over, looking like a pathetic, crippled old man, his attorney, Ed Ryan, told the court Fr. Szantyr could not feed, bathe or dress himself. The case was put off for six months. One victim became so upset during his ride home from court that day that he had to pull over at a rest area on the Massachusetts Turnpike. Moments later, a car drove into the very same rest area, and guess who got out and walked to the refreshment area? That’s right, the “incompetent” Fr. Szantyr. The victim’s quick-thinking friend took photographs of Szantyr going about his business without any signs of infirmity and no wheelchair in sight! The prosecutor had these photos in hand when he learned a few months later that Fr. Szantyr obtained an unrestricted driver’s license from the state of Connecticut after the wheelchair-in-court routine. Fr. Szantyr also reportedly made money performing religious services in private homes. With all this evidence of Fr. Szantyr’s competence, the victims felt certain the case would soon be back on track for trial.”
Sadly, the cleric passed away, and all the charges against him were dropped. The column “Father Fraud: Victims Violated Again by Judge’s Ruling,” in the Patriot Ledger newspaper, is worth a read for more shocking revelations. But even if a child molester is NOT ‘faking it’ and is indeed disabled in some way, his lack of physical prowess might make abusing a youngster more difficult, but not impossible. And, though this may seem counterintuitive, a physical ailment or restriction may actually HELP a child molester win the trust of parents and gain access to kids. As we described at the outset, the more impaired and non-threatening a person a person seems, the less we tend to consider them a potential threat.
We’ve repeatedly cautioned in this blog and our many conversations with abuse survivors and concerned citizens that none of us can detect a child predator just by observing them, no matter how much we might secretly think, ‘Yeah, I’ll bet that at least sometimes, I can spot one of these creeps.’ So we should all bear in mind that there’s no single, clear ‘way’ child abusers act.
Similarly, there’s no single, clear ‘way’ child molesters LOOK either. They may seem doddering, decrepit, weak, frail, disabled, or demented and, therefore, not dangerous. But that is just an assumption that endangers kids rather than protecting them.
Horowitz Law is a law firm representing victims and survivors of sexual abuse by religious authority figures and other clergy. If you need a lawyer because a member of a religious organization sexually abused you, contact us today at 888-283-9922 or [email protected] to discuss your options today. Our lawyers have decades of experience representing survivors of clergy sexual abuse nationwide. We can help.