Convicted Ex-Priest Faces New Charges

The Rev. Donald McGuire is charged with three counts of child molestation and one count each of providing obscene material to minors and indecent exposure, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office said Wednesday.

Arizona authorities, working with federal officials, took McGuire into custody at his Chicago-area home on Tuesday. McGuire, 77, complained of chest pains and was hospitalized. He suffers from congestive heart failure.

McGuire is accused of molesting two brothers in Arizona between 1998 and 2002. Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said at a press briefing that the boys were 9- and 12 years old when the abuse began.

The brothers filed a lawsuit in Chicago in October alleging McGuire molested them during confession in Arizona and in Chicago. A spokesman for Thomas said the boys' family brought the allegations to their attention at about the same time and a criminal investigation was launched.

McGuire was convicted in 2006 in Wisconsin of molesting two boys in the 1960s. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and 20 years of probation, but a judge has allowed him to remain free and on probation as he appeals his conviction, according to his lawyer in Milwaukee, Robert Henek.

He faces federal charges in Chicago of traveling outside the U.S. and across state lines to engage in sex with a teenage boy between 2000 and 2003.

With state and federal charges pending against his client, McGuire's Chicago attorney, Stephen Komie, questioned the decision to press charges against McGuire in Arizona, saying his client's prosecution would be costly.

"You'll have to account for him flying back and forth for federal and state cases, plus you'll have to pay for his medical care, where as now it's being paid for as a part of his employment," Komie said.

McGuire was relieved of active priestly duties in June 2003, and was formally dismissed as a priest by Pope Benedict XVI earlier this year, according to the Chicago Province Jesuits.