Illinois v. Rev. Fred Lenczycki

Illinois v. Rev. Fred Lenczycki was a 2004 criminal case from DePage county IIllinois in which Lenczycki pled guilty to three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse in connection with his abuse of three
boys while he was a priest in Hinsdale between 1980 and 1984. One of those three boys, Brian, was molested by Rev. Lenczycki at St. Isaac Jogues Elementary School in Hinsdale in 1983 when he was 10 years old. In 1997, when Brian was in his mid-twenties, Brian started to dream about the abuse and remembered what had happened to him. Lenczycki admits to having molested over 30 boys in six parishes in Illinois, California and Missouri from 1974 to 1999; his confession, guilty plea, and the abundance of other victims overwhelmingly corroborate Brian's recovered memories. In addition to the criminal charges resulting from Brian's case, Brian was one of twelve of Lenczycki's former victims who sued the Joliet Dioscese. “Brian said he settled his suit for a ‘couple hundred thousand dollars.’ He used the money to pay off his education and for a small down payment on a house. He said it wasn’t about the money, but rather to try to hold [Bishop] Imesch accountable.” In response to the allegations in the 2004 case, Lenczycki told his victims that he had been confused about his sexuality. He contended that he did not want to break his celibacy by sleeping with a woman and was not aware of the extent of his wrongdoings. Lenczycki was sentenced to five years in 2004. In 2008, one year before his release, he became the first U.S. priest to be labeled a "sexually violent person" under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act, and has been defrocked and ordered to receive ongoing counceling and treatment. In 2019, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to ten years for two counts of sodomy for crimes that occurred from 1991 to 1994 while he was stationed in Missouri. He is still serving this sentence. (See Gutowski, “Pedophile priest’s victim: ‘You can’t have 30 victims and have remorse,’” Daily Herald (March 25, 2008). https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-former-priest-fred-lenczycki-sentenced-again-20190816-k63mz64skrh6lnt7h3pxqtzj7u-story.html, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/il-court-of-appeals/1544769.html)