Commitment hearing under way for former priest
During his 30-year career as a Roman Catholic priest, Fred Lenczycki allegedly sexually abused more than two dozen boys at churches and religious schools in three states.
Lenczycki, 63, pleaded guilty in 2004 to abusing three boys at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church in Hinsdale during the early to mid-1980s. He served half of his five-year prison sentence and was released on parole in April 2006.
A hearing to determine Lenczycki's fate began Friday in DuPage County Circuit Court in front of Judge Bonnie Wheaton.
The state is seeking to commit Lenczycki for life to a mental health treatment facility under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act, which allows prosecutors to do so if they can prove a convicted sex offender is a high risk to commit another violent sexual offense. This is the first time prosecutors in Illinois have attempted to apply the law to a priest.
The case will center around the testimony of four psychologists who have examined Lenczycki. While they have all diagnosed the former priest with pedophilia, a mental disorder causing sexual attraction to children, they are split on whether he is a high risk for reoffending.
Two psychologists called by the state have testified that Lenczycki is likely to go on sexually abusing young boys if released from custody, while the two called by the defense are expected to counter their opinions.
"What a person has done in the past ... helps predict what that person will do in the future," Illinois Assistant Attorney General Mike Kress said during his opening statement Friday. "A leopard doesn't change its spots, and a man who does not learn from his past is doomed to repeat it."
Lenczycki's attorney, James Montgomery, argued that his client's age, along with a number of other factors, make it unlikely that he will commit future sexual crimes if he is released from state custody.
Since being released from prison, Lenczycki has voluntarily entered sex-offender treatment at an Illinois Department of Human Services facility where he has lived while awaiting the hearing, Montgomery said.
Amy Phenix, a California clinical psychologist testifying for the state, said that although many sex offenders stop offending as they reach their later years, that doesn't appear to be the case with Lenczycki, who allegedly abused boys until at least 1999.
"You would expect as an individual ages, an offender would stop offending," she said. "When an offender in his early 60s continued to offend into his mid to late 50s, you can't make that assumption."
Phenix testified that it is "more likely than not" that Lenczycki will commit future sexually violent acts if he is released from custody.
Ray Quackenbush, an Illinois clinical psychologist who specializes in the treatment of sex offenders, testified Monday for the state. He agreed with Phenix's diagnosis and her opinion on the likelihood that Lenczycki would offend again.
Lenczycki was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1972 and began his career at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Naperville, where he allegedly abused three boys, according to court testimony. He allegedly abused three more boys at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Romeoville while assigned there from 1975 to 1980.
From 1980 until 1984, Lenczycki was assigned to St. Isaac Jogues, where he admitted abusing about a dozen boys. After the abuses were brought to the attention of the church's pastor and then-Diocese of Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch, Lenczycki was sent to treatment facilities in Missouri and California. Authorities were not notified of the abuses, and Lenczycki was allowed to remain a priest.
The abuses continued while Lenczycki was assigned to various churches in California and Missouri throughout the 1990s. The charges to which he ultimately pleaded guilty came in 2002 when, under public pressure, the Diocese of Joliet handed over to prosecutors records of alleged abuses by priests.
Dan Petrella can be reached at dpetrella@mysuburbanlife.com.