Mar 28, 2008
Father Fay gets his wish: No prison until May
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UPDATED
Monday 12:09 p.m.
FIRST REPORTED
Friday 3:44 p.m.
After his lawyer said reporting to jail next week, as sentenced, would mean former St. John Roman Catholic Parish pastor Michael Jude Fay would die there, Judge Janet Bond Arterton granted a delay.
But it was for six weeks, rather than the six month delay he requested. The priest convicted of stealing parishioners’ money was scheduled to report Wednesday, April 2, to federal prison.
Fay’s attorney, Lawrence Hopkins, requested the delay for Fay to continue to receive his experimental cancer treatment, which can only be administered outside of prison, according to previous addendum filed by his attorney.
Hopkins previously filed a motion to delay the former pastor’s reporting to prison next week in order to continue the treatment. The judge also required more evidence ibefore making any decision.
“Fay has repeatedly tried to avoid any prison sentence for his six years of criminal conduct, stealing more than $1 million, not to mention the sacred trust, from the parishioners he was privileged to serve,” the response to Fay’s motion said.
The addendum says that Fay is being treated by an experimental drug called MDV 3100, because his previous FDA-approved treatment did nothing to improve his condition.
“His present experimental treatment is the only one available which shows any promise of prolonging his life,” the document reads.
The treatment is only offered at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and “is not available through the Bureau of Prisons.”
Hopkins’ addendum says that Fay has been responding to the treatment and that the delay is to effectively treat the cancer “to the extent that he could survive 37 months of incarceration.”
“Denial of this present treatment will virtually insure that he can not,” the addendum reads.
In an attached letter from Fay’s physician, Ethan Basch, the doctor recommends that Fay continue with the experimental treatment and confirms the positive response to the drug.
The judge granted the motion to continue the surrender date “in part”, basing it on a discussion with Fay’s counsel on record on March 25. Fay also is required to provide a set of current medical records to the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C., where he would be serving his jail time
Any further request of an extension of Fay’s surrender date will require a hearing, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Fay, who is suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was sentenced in December to 37 months in federal prison for stealing parishioners’ money while serving as pastor of St. John’s.
Fay pleaded guilty in September to one count of interstate transportation of money obtained by fraud. He was facing up to 10 years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
In May 2006, it was discovered that Fay had been using church money to support his lavish lifestyle, which included trips to Europe, the Caribbean and other parts of the United States. A private investigation — prompted by another church priest and its bookkeeper — also discovered that Fay was in a romantic relationship with another man, a Philadelphia event planner. Fay resigned from St. John’s shortly after the news broke.
An August 2006 independent audit commissioned by the Diocese of Bridgeport, reported that St. John Parish lost at least $1.4 million since 2000. Fay became church pastor in 1991.
E-mail Darien Times reporter Susan Shultz at
sshultz@darientimes.com.
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