Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2003 | 9:49 a.m.
A support group for people abused by priests is asking the attorney general's office to investigate why Parole and Probation Department supervisors rejected a caseworker's recommendation of jail time for a Henderson priest who pleaded guilty to molesting five teens.
In a letter released Tuesday, leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) asked Attorney General Brian Sandoval to investigate "possible impropriety" surrounding the sentencing of Mark Roberts, 52.
Roberts was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to relocate to a Missouri treatment center after he pleaded guilty to abusing five teen boys at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Henderson.
SNAP leaders last month discovered that Carolyn Butts, the Parole and Probation official who reviewed Robert's case, had recommended that Roberts be sentenced to five years in jail.
That recommendation was vetoed by Butts' supervisors, however, and the recommendation was changed to probation. Butts' name was on the final report presented to the judge, but Butts did not sign the lesser recommendation.
In the letter to Sandoval, group leaders said they are worried some church officials may have "exercised undue or improper influence to subvert the system and secure a more favorable sentence for this dangerous man."
Mary Grant, SNAP's western regional director, said the attorney general should "thoroughly investigate" why the initial recommendation was overruled.
"Here is an admitted child molester who should be locked up," she said. "We want to know who made this decision and why."
Debbie Tullgren, the mother of one of the teens Roberts abused, said the Parole and Probation Department has done a disservice to the entire community.
"The initial recommendation was fit," she said. "They owe the public an explanation as to why it was changed."
But Tom Sargent, spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the office does not plan to launch an investigation into Roberts' sentencing. He said the office does not get involved in the Department of Parole and Probation's administrative or operative functions unless some criminal agency is involved.
"There's nothing we would investigate," he said. "At this point nothing tells us that any laws have been broken on the part of the agency."
Kim Evans, a spokeswoman for Parole and Probation, confirmed Tuesday that department officials decided against recommending jail time for Roberts.
She declined to comment further, saying pre-sentencing investigations are kept confidential.
"I can't speak to any of the decision-making that goes into developing or submitting pre-sentencing investigations because it is prohibited by state law," she said.
Evans said all reports go through an internal review process before they reach the courts and Roberts' case was no exception.
"The recommendations are divisional recommendations, not individual recommendations," she said.
But Grant said she's not so sure that influential individuals in the community, such as priests, are treated equally under the law.
She said many law enforcement officials and prosecutors are devout Catholics who "have been taught that the church is the higher authority."
"It's possible that improper influence was used to help Roberts," she said. "If this were someone else, the story would be much different."
Tullgren said she also believes Roberts received special treatment because of his position in the church.
"I firmly believe that if Mark Roberts had not had a collar, he would have been treated differently," she said.
Roberts pleaded guilty to one count of open or gross lewdness and four counts of child abuse and neglect after he admitted to whipping the boys with a belt and pouring hot candle wax on the boys while having them stand with their arms stretched out, as if they were on a cross.
All the crimes were gross misdemeanors. As a condition of his plea agreement, Roberts was required to resign from the priesthood.
He was ordered to serve his probation at Recon, a treatment center for priests south of St. Louis. A Missouri Department of Corrections official said Tuesday that the state had completed its paperwork to allow Roberts' transfer.
Sargent said he is confident officials would have levied felony charges against Roberts if it were possible. A felony charge would have guaranteed a harsher sentence, he said.
"If there were a prosecutable sexual offense, it would have come forward as a result of this process," he said.
Tullgren said that when Butts interviewed her as part of the investigation, there was "an indication that she was going to recommend jail time."
SNAP's letter to Sandoval states that "reportedly, Butts was upset that her carefully researched and prepared recommendation was overruled, apparently without explanation by her supervisors."
Though prosecutors had agreed not to argue against probation at the time of sentencing, the ultimate sentence was up to the discretion of District Judge Donald Mosley, who handed down the sentence.
Judges can go along with or reject recommendations from the Parole and Probation Department.
archive
