Facing the 'Beast': At Sentencing, Teen Confronts Priest Who Abused Him
by Rita Ciolli, staff writer
Originally published by Newsday, March 5, 2003
Confronting the Rev. Michael Hands yesterday for the first time in almost two years, the teenage boy he sodomized told of how the Roman Catholic priest who bought him presents and ate dinner with his family destroyed his childhood.
"As a 13-year-old boy my body was brutally raped and my innocence murdered by a selfish, despicable, manipulative beast," the youth said at the sentencing of the 36-year-old priest in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead. "My last imprinted childhood memory before its death is that of Michael's lips with a smirk. 'What's wrong, ... [first name]? You should be smiling.'"
The college-bound senior at a Catholic high school said he chose to make a public statement so others will understand the horror of sexual abuse of children. "My decision to be here today is not for catharsis; it is not for the criminal; it is to expose the abhorrence of this crime and its perpetrators. It is to make the future of other children safer and uncorrupted by the hands of disgusting predators," he said.
Newsday is withholding the identities of the victim and his family because the boy was sexually abused.
Wearing a jeans jacket and pale yellow pants, the teen read from notes on a small legal pad, never glancing over at Hands, who stood about 15 feet away. The priest, his body shaking and his face pale, stared at the youth he still insists he loved in a consensual relationship.
Afterward, Judge Stephen Braslow sentenced Hands to two consecutive 1-year sentences in the county jail. The sentence was worked out in exchange for Hands pleading guilty last month to one count of sodomy and one count of attempted sodomy.
Earlier, the victim's mother described his betrayal by Hands as an evil trying to destroy their family.
"You have taken my son from me. The innocence of his childhood is gone. You have taken my motherhood from me," she said of Hands, reading softly from her handwritten notes. She described how she wanted the priest to be a role model for her children, often cooking dinner for him on Thursdays. "How could you abuse my son in my home and then sit beside me, eat dessert and watch TV?" she said.
"There can be no true justice that can bring back what I have lost," said the mother, her voice steady. Afterward, she said she crafted her remarks from notes she made "along the path" in her brown journal, which she clutched for security yesterday.
Also sitting in the front row of the courtroom was another set of parents who claim their son was abused by Hands when he was a seminarian. They have attended almost all of Hands' court appearances.
The teenage victim and his family expressed their frustration at Hands' continuing justification of his crimes. Hands said that he himself was a victim, sexually abused as a teenager by another priest, and that he and the teen had a consensual relationship.
Hands seemed stunned by the family's outrage and sat down for a moment after they finished. By the time he began his statement, the family had left, exiting through the judge's chambers to avoid the media. Braslow had rejected an earlier request by Peter Rubin, Hands' defense attorney, that the family stay to hear Hands' apology.
When it was his turn, Hands turned to the judge and said he wanted to offer "my profound apology to the court, to the people of Suffolk and to the people of the Diocese of Rockville Centre. But most importantly and profoundly I want to apologize to the young man, the high school teenager I was involved with and to his family." Hands then said what he did "was totally inappropriate and wrong, it was immoral and I broke the law."
He went on say, "I have wanted to tell him that he was not to blame for anything that happened between us. No matter how cooperative he was in everything that happened, I was the adult and I am the one responsible. I acknowledge this; I get it."
The church sent Hands for treatment after his May 2001 arrest. He also said that while he was in therapy he was able to confront the fact that he too had been "sexually abused" and "manipulated" as a teen. While he did not name in court the priest he says abused him, he has in the past accused the Rev. Charles Ribaudo of abusing him while he was a student at Trinity High School in Hicksville. Ribaudo has denied the allegation.
After hearing Hands' statement, Braslow admonished him to use his time in jail to reflect on his behavior. "A lot of what you said is again blaming others," Braslow said.
Hands will be sentenced in Nassau County next week to 6 months in jail and 5 years' probation for similar crimes involving the same teen. Hands is expected to then serve 13 months in the Yaphank jail before he is released on probation.
After the sentencing, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota criticized Hands "for continuing to pursue the line that he is a victim," but acknowledged that the priest received a lenient sentence. Spota said he will seek to have Hands classified as a serious sex offender who must register with local police wherever he lives.
Hands was a major witness before the Suffolk County grand jury that investigated how the Diocese of Rockville Centre handled sex abuse charges against its priests. "His cooperation led us to information that we never would have known about," Spota said. "That is the only good thing I can say about Father Hands."
In December, during the intense plea bargaining negotiations in the case, Hands provided a detailed statement under oath to Michael Dowd, the lawyer for the family of the victim. In return, the family, while making their "victim impact statements" yesterday, did not oppose the sentence.
Dowd said he expects to file a civil lawsuit in a few weeks against the diocese, claiming it was negligent in its supervision of the priest. Hands has said he will not contest the church's efforts to defrock him.
In a written statement yesterday, the diocese said, "The harm done to this young man is a profound tragedy. We continue to hold him and his family in our prayers. We continue to pray also for Father Hands as he begins his time of atonement for his crime."
