Friday, Aug. 1, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.
SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
A Roman Catholic priest sentenced as a sex offender to probation at a Missouri counseling center remained in a Las Vegas rooming house Thursday while Nevada and Missouri officials negotiate how he'll be supervised, authorities said.
Mark Thomas Roberts, 52, has no home and could not stay under house arrest at his sister's home as a judge ordered May 30 because she has children, Roberts' lawyer, George Foley Sr., said.
"It's hard to place the guy," Foley said, describing Roberts' unsettled living arrangements before he rented a room in Las Vegas. Foley declined to specify where Roberts was living.
Foley and Nevada Department of Parole and Probation officials said Roberts remained under strict oversight pending transfer to in-patient supervision at Recon, a treatment center for wayward priests in Dittmer, Mo.
"I had him at my house for two or three days," Foley said. "But he's under control of house arrest. Part of the security is that nobody knows where he is."
Judith Kohl, attorney for the Catholic Dioses of Las Vegas, said this morning that she did not know where Roberts was living. She said she did not know if he was still in Las Vegas.
"We don't know," she said. "We haven't had any contact with him."
Deborah Tullgren, the mother of one of Roberts' victims, said Thursday the public deserved to know where Roberts was living.
She also expressed outrage that Parole and Probation recommended probation after one probation official recommended he get five years in jail, the maximum sentence, for fondling and abusing boys at his Henderson parish.
"It's totally a disservice to the public and the community -- Catholic and lay people," Tullgren said. "The original decision, where he was supposed to go to jail, seemed fit and due."
Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon, who prosecuted the case, noted that prosecutors "had agreed not to oppose probation" when Roberts pleaded guilty in January to one count of open and gross lewdness and four counts of child abuse and neglect.
"The case was negotiated by our office in a way they believed was appropriate," he said. "The families had input into that original negotiation, and it was decided that that was how it would be resolved."
Parole and Probation chief Amy Wright said Thursday from Carson City that Roberts would be moved to Missouri once a written interstate compact is negotiated.
"It sometimes takes time in the case of violence or sex offenses where the offender is not a resident of that state," she said.
Missouri is investigating whether it can accommodate Nevada's request to move Roberts to Recon and transfer oversight to Missouri probation officers, said Tim Kniest spokesman for the Missouri Department of Corrections. He said the Nevada request arrived in Jefferson City, Mo., on July 8.
He was removed as pastor at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Henderson in January 2001, but Foley said he remains a priest pending formal defrocking action.
Kohl said the process to defrock him had begun, but she said she did not know how long it would take.
"Even now he cannot officially operate as a priest," Kohl said. "He can per form no priestly function whatsoever."
Roberts has to register as a sex offender and is barred from dealing with minors.
Wright she reviewed the recommendation sent to Clark County District Judge Donald Mosley before Roberts' May 30 sentencing.
She said confidentiality rules prevented her from discussing specifics of the document.
But she confirmed the the department recommend probation despite an initial recommendation that Roberts serve five years.
"The recommendation is a division recommendation," Wright said. "It is not an individual person's recommendation."
Herndon said prosecutors have no say in the department's recommendation.
If prosecutors notice an error in the facts of the background of the case contained in the report, they can request the court to order an amended report or supplement, he said.
"But we can't affect what they recommend in terms of the sentence," he said. "It's not our job and it's not our jurisdiction."
Presentence specialist Carolyn Butts declined comment. The report bears her name and title, but not her signature. Wright said Thursday that Butts no longer works in the department.
archive
