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John GeoghanFather John J. Geoghan (about 1935 - August 23, 2003) was a key figure in the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandals that rocked the Boston Archdiocese in the 1990s and 2000s, and eventually led to the resignation of Bernard Cardinal Law on December 13, 2002. Geoghan was a graduate of Cardinal O'Connell Seminary, and was ordained in 1962. Assigned successively to Blessed Sacrament parish, Saugus; St. Bernards parish, Concord; St. Paul's parish, Hingham; St. Andrew's parish, Jamaica Plain; St. Brendans parish, Dorchester; and finally St. Julias parish, Weston; and treated for his sexual impulses by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in private practice, as well as at St. Lukes Institute, Maryland; the Institute of Living, Hartford; and Southdown Institute, Ontario, he eventually took up residence at the Regina Cleri residence for retired priests. Over a thirty-year career in six parishes, Geoghan was accused of sexual abuse by more than 130 people. Charges were brought in Cambridge, Massachusetts, only on one case, concerning accusations of a molestation that took place in 1991. He was defrocked in 1998. He was found guilty in January 2002 of indecent assault and battery for grabbing the buttocks of a 10-year-old boy in a swimming pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991, and was sentenced to nine to ten years in prison. The trial included testimony from the victim; from a psychiatrist, Dr. Edward Messner, who treated Geoghan for his sexual fantasies about children from 1994-1996; and from Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes, who testified that he banned Geoghan from the swimming club after a complaint that he had been proselytizing and had had prurient conversations there. After initially agreeing to, and pulling out of, a $30 million settlement with 86 of Geoghan's victims, the Boston archdiocese settled with them for $10 million, and is still negotiating with lawyers for other victims. The most recent settlement proposed is $65 million for 542 victims. The settlements are being made because of evidence that the archdiocese had transferred Geoghan from parish to parish despite warnings of his behavior. Evidence also arose, as a result of allegations against Geoghan, that the archdiocese displayed a pattern of shipping other priests to new parishes when allegations were made. On August 23, 2003, while in protective custody at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts, John Geoghan was trapped in his cell, strangled and stomped by a homophobic fellow inmate (already serving life without possibility of parole). He died hours later at Leominster Hospital. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be "ligature strangulation and blunt chest trauma," Joseph L. Druce, the inmate who killed Father Geoghan, had previously been convicted of killing a man whom he believed was gay. It has also been suggested that Druce had been offered money to kill the priest or that Druce thought he would gain favorable treatment from prison officials for doing so. There have been questions raised about the wisdom and propriety of placing these two men in the same unit, since prison official had been warned by another inmate that Druce had something planned. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/26/national/26PRIE.html Under Massachusetts law, the two charges pending against him can never be tried. More surprisingly, because he appealed his one conviction, and that appeal was still pending at his death, that conviction will never enter his prison record: he goes to the grave with an expunged record, a clean slate. Geoghan, John Geoghan, John
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