Defrocked New Jersey Priest Had A Teaching Job In Dominican Republic School

An investigation into a New Jersey priest who was defrocked won't face any penalties after he was caught teaching at a Dominican Republic private school, according to an NBC News report.

Hadmels DeFrias had been a Roman Catholic priest under the Archdiocese of Newark during the early 2000s. He was accused of sexual assault towards two young brothers in 2004, resulting in his arrest. Subsequently, DeFrias pled guilty to criminal sexual contact and was sentenced to three years of probation.

DeFrias’ name came back up in February when Cardinal Joseph Tobin released a list of priests, starting from 1940, that had been “credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors.” This list prompted NBC News to begin looking into some of the names, leading to them discovering DeFrias in the Caribbean country.

The outlet found that DeFrias was still referring to himself as “reverend” online despite being defrocked and had started an interfaith group. Reporters then went to confront him about it in March, where he admitted that parents would be nervous having someone like him teaching their children.

He did reveal that he had been in therapy for 10 years and expressed regret over what happened.

In the wake of the report, the Dominican Republic began an investigation into DeFrias and he was fired from Colegio del Caribe, the school where he worked.

“This case was closed after we concluded that Mr. DeFrias had been fired from the school he was working in,” Ministry of Education communications director Glenn Davis told NBC News.

“Everyone agreed Mr. DeFrias could not and should not have been allowed to be in the care of small children after his conviction. Unfortunately, there was no way for the Ministry of Education to know his past ahead of time.”

The reason for this is because the Dominican Republican government does not monitor hirings and background checks for teachers at private schools. As such, it does mean that DeFrais could still be hired at any over the over 1,000 private schools in the country.

But as such, no further action will be taken by the Dominican Republic against DeFrias.