Roberts sent to treatment center

Erica D. Johnson

Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.

The Henderson Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to abusing five teenage boys will have 60 days to go to a treatment center outside Nevada, a district judge ruled today.

District Judge Donald Mosley said Mark Roberts, 52, would be relocated to a facility outside Nevada to carry out the remainder of his three years probation.

"He will be housed in a secure environment and will leave only with a security guard or staff," Mosley said.

Mosley did not specify where the treatment center was located, and the prosecutor was unavailable for comment.

Until Roberts is moved, he will remain on house arrest in the Las Vegas Valley, under the eye of state Department of Parole and Probation officials, Mosley said. Roberts is living with a relative.

Roberts was silent throughout the hearing.

Judith Simon Kohl, an attorney for the Diocese of Las Vegas, said earlier this week that Roberts was officially still a priest but that he had begun the defrocking process.

"His status is unchanged," Kohl said.

Debbie Tullgren, the mother of one of Roberts' victims, said that the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas is still paying Roberts a monthly stipend of $2,500 per month. She didn't say where she got the information from.

"People who tithe might want to skip a Sunday and send it elsewhere," she said.

She said Roberts also is not going through the process of being terminated from the priesthood, as is required by his plea agreement. She said Roberts was only "suspended" and was not being defrocked.

"This terrifies me. Who is to say he can't leave the state of Nevada and become a priest somewhere else?" she said.

Kohl could not be reached this morning to respond to Tullgren's allegations. The diocese has referred all questions about Roberts to Kohl.

Tullgren said she did not know where Roberts would be transported but that she hoped to find out by this afternoon.

When she finds out the location, she said, she and members of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a support group, would tell people in the area.

"The public deserves to know," she said.

Roberts in January pleaded guilty to one count of open or gross lewdness and four counts of child abuse and neglect. He was sentenced to three years probation and ordered to relocate to a Missouri treatment center.

But the Missouri Department of Parole and Probation denied Roberts' placement and Roberts returned to Mosley's courtroom this morning for re-sentencing.

Missouri officials alluded to media attention surrounding the case, as well as the fact that one of the victims attends school 20 to 30 miles away, as reasons for the refusal.

Roberts had been placed on house arrest in the interim, though authorities would not comment on where exactly Roberts was being held.

Roberts was a priest at St. Peter the Apostle Church in Henderson. His guilty plea related to fondling, verbally abusing and beating five boys between Jan. 1, 2001, and Feb. 1, 2002.

Roberts also pleaded guilty to whipping the boys with a leather 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.