Former Wyckoff priest arrested for court order violation

Abbot Koloff
The (North Jersey) Record
May 20' 2013

A former Wyckoff assistant pastor, who had been allowed to continue working as a priest despite confessing to the sexual abuse of a 13-year-old child, was arrested Monday and charged with violating an agreement with law enforcement officials that barred him from working with children.

BERGEN COUNTY PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE

The Rev. Michael Fugee

The Rev. Michael Fugee was arrested at a Newark parish on Monday and was charged with seven counts of violating a judicial order,Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said in a statement.

Molinelli said that Fugee, a former associate pastor at St. Elizabeth parish in Wyckoff, allegedly heard confessions from children on at least seven occasions, including twice at aRochelle Park parish where church authorities had allowed him to live in the rectory.

Fugee heard confessions in February and again in March at Sacred Heart Church in Rochelle Park, Molinelli said. Fugee left that parish earlier this year after The Record inquired about him living there. He also herd confession from minors at Our Lady of Visitation Church in Paramus in December, the prosecutor said.

Law enforcement officials said they had been investigating whether Fugee violated the terms of a memorandum of understanding after it came to light that the priest had been attending youth group excursions with a Monmouth County church.

Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has been under fire for the way he handled Fugee’s case, although there is no evidence that church officials knew that Fugee had been attending the youth group trips.

Fugee’s conviction on a charge of criminal sexual contact with a minor was overturned on a technicality by an appellate panel. The priest initially confessed to abusing a 13-year-old boy but later recanted. Church officials allowed him to return to ministry, gave him promotions  and let him live in a Rochelle Park rectory.

Fugee recently resigned from the ministry after the youth group allegations were made.

Email: koloff@northjersey.com