Philip Anthony Magaldi

Unfortunately, for Magaldi, his legal troubles were not over.

A Parish Theft

One year after Magaldi was acquitted in connection with the von Bülow case, he resigned from his pastorate at St. Anthony’s Church in North Providence amid an accounting scandal.19“Priest Resigns After Accounting Errors,” Boston Globe, June 1, 1988.

Magaldi left Providence in June 1988 to study Spanish in San Antonio, Texas. Providence Bishop Louis Edward Gelineau said Magaldi’s departure was due to “accounting errors.”20“Priest Resigns After Accounting Errors,” Boston Globe, June 1, 1988. More than $400,000 was missing from St. Anthony’s.21Jerry O’Brien, “Parish Is Relieved by Indictment,” Providence Journal, November 9, 1990. In November 1990, these errors culminated in charges that Magaldi stole half the missing money. Prosecutors alleged Magaldi used the money to take teenage boys to Frenchmen’s Reef Hotel22A comment on the Frommer’s website says of Frenchman’s Reef that “Back in early 80's it was a property that catered to the gay community.” in the Virgin Islands, and that he gave a boy he met in a Montreal park enough money to buy a car.23Tracy Breton, “Fr. Magaldi Gets 2 Years for Stealing,” Providence Journal, May 6, 1992.

At first, Magaldi pleaded innocent to the charges. But in May 1992, he pleaded guilty to forging five checks and to “coercing a St. Anthony volunteer worker to send him $2,500 from weekly mass collections after he had left the parish for Texas.”24“Priest Gets Jail for Embezzlement,” Boston Globe, May 7, 1992. Magaldi was sentenced to two years in prison and served eight months in a work-release program.

Though Magaldi explained to his stalwart supporters that he pleaded guilty only to stealing an amount of more than $500, the state said it could prove he stole more than $123,000.25Magaldi’s annual salary as a priest was between $6,000 and $8,000. An investigator said “that over more than three years, there was a $218,000 difference between what Father Magaldi spent on personal expenses and the income he earned from the parish” (“Priest Pleads Guilty in Theft: Stole $123,400 from Parish,” Tracy Breton, Providence Journal-Bulletin, February 29, 1992). Magaldi said he simply paid some elderly Church employees in cash so they would not have to pay taxes – wrong, but not theft. He also admitted asking a St. Anthony’s employee to send him $300 a week for living expenses while he was studying in San Antonio. Magaldi admitted this was embezzlement, but said he intended to repay it.26Richard C. Dujardin, “Priest wants Parish to Help Keep Him Free of Jail Term,” Providence Journal, April 6. 1992.

Interestingly, Magaldi also said he pleaded guilty so that certain important people would not be embarrassed by testimony at the trial. Publicly, he identified these as “a banker and a Providence politician.”27 Brooks Egerton, “Bishop Hired Two Priests after Suspensions: He Defends Their Work Since Joining F[ort] W[orth] Diocese,” Dallas Morning News, August 12, 1998. Years later, in a December 1998 interview with Lt. Robert McCarthy, retired from the Massachusetts State Police, he names someone else. That person’s name is redacted, but evidence indicates it might be Bishop Gelineau.

Saving Bishop Gelineau

In Rhode Island, rumors have long circulated that Bishop Gelineau was arrested with a teenage boy in his car and the arrest was suppressed.28“In a related development, the grand jury indicted Robert M. Graham, 23, of 29 Salem Drive, North Providence, a church employee from 1987 through 1989, on a charge of embezzlement (Joseph Driscoll, “Ex-Pastor in N. Providence Indicted in Embezzlement,” Providence Journal, November 8, 1990.). His suspected theft led to a police investigation that “showed that Father Magaldi had stolen money from the parish’s Bingo, building, and activities fund.” At the same time Magaldi was stealing money from the parish, so was parish employee Robert M. Graham29“In a related development, the grand jury indicted Robert M. Graham, 23, of 29 Salem Drive, North Providence, a church employee from 1987 through 1989, on a charge of embezzlement (Joseph Driscoll, “Ex-Pastor in N. Providence Indicted in Embezzlement,” Providence Journal, November 8, 1990). His suspected theft led to a police investigation that “showed that Father Magaldi had stolen money from the parish’s Bingo, building, and activities fund.”

The diocese had not initiated any investigation of Magaldi, whose theft was discovered as a result of the investigation of Graham, an investigation which the diocese has asked the police to conduct. , who was familiar with the Gelineau rumors. As Magaldi’s trial unfolded, Graham prepared to admit in open court that he had stolen the money. He said he did it because he knew Magaldi also was stealing – but getting away with it because he had a sexual relationship with Bishop Gelineau.

Magaldi discovered Graham’s intentions by reading through the interrogatories.30Fort Worth Documents 0564-7. Their names are redacted, but Magaldi is clearly speaking of Gelineau and Graham. Magaldi knew the media already thought he was a homosexual; specific mentions of his visits to Frenchman’s Reef Hotel, a resort popular among gays at the time, in news reports reports covering the case, showed that reporters suspected Magaldi. Though Gelineau and Magaldi would have denied allegations of a sexual relationship, Magaldi knew the media would cover Graham’s testimony and the public would assume it confirmed the rumor of Gelineau’s arrest. To spare Gelineau the disgrace, Magaldi pleaded guilty.

Bishop Joseph P. Delaney of Fort Worth, Texas, a former classmate and future colleague of Magaldi’s, later noted that Magaldi “maintained and continues to that he was in fact not guilty, but by pleading guilty he was saving the bishop of Providence from a lot of difficulties – in other words, he was really a martyr.”31Fort Worth Documents 0472.

Had the principals been behaving rationally, Graham’s allegation would have seemed clearly false: if Gelineau and Magaldi had a sexual relationship, Gelineau would never have permitted the police to investigate the finances of St. Anthony’s without consulting Magaldi. The fact that Gelineau turned the investigation over to the police suggests the allegations were baseless. Nonetheless, scurrilous rumors about Gelineau circulated around Rhode Island.

Magaldi’s Counseling Methods

Despite two criminal trials and a prison sentence, Magaldi’s outrageous behavior continued. In July 1995, a college student went to Magaldi, now at St. John the Apostle Church in Fort Worth, Texas, for confession to discuss a “sensitive personal matter.”32Fort Worth Documents 0427-9. As the boy was an adolescent, it was “a sexual matter.”33Fort Worth Documents 0430-1. Magaldi offered the boy “significant personal instances regarding the same subject, ostensibly to help [him] deal with the situation.”

Confession is often used by abusers to target boys with sexual problems.

Magaldi built a relationship with the boy, taking him out to dinner at expensive restaurants, plying him with wine and beer, introducing him to others as his “nephew.” The boy at first thought the relationship would strengthen his faith, but later, during swimming sessions at Magaldi’s apartment, found the clergyman becoming overly familiar.

Magaldi told the boy he had a medical condition and required enemas. He asked the boy to give him one, explaining that his doctor had ordered it and it would cost $25 at the office. The boy told Magaldi that Magaldi’s mother should do it. Magaldi said that would be too embarrassing. Reluctantly, the boy agreed to do this on four occasions.

The boy told authorities about his relationship with Magaldi. Magaldi admitted the strange enema procedure to diocesan officials, who did not believe the enemas were in fact medically indicated; they thought Magaldi had “demonstrated sexually inappropriate behavior.”34Fort Worth Documents 0427-9. Magaldi did not think he had done anything wrong. His punishment from the diocese was to work at a food bank.35Fort Worth Documents 0436.

Although Bishop Delaney of Fort Worth was aware of Magaldi’s involvement in the von Bülow case—an involvement which included an indictment for perjury—neither Delaney nor anyone else in the chancery seemed to be aware of Dershowitz’s book Reversal of Fortune (about the two Claus von Bülow trials) or of newspaper stories that indicated Magaldi’s involvement with young men.

If they had researched details of the case, they would have discovered that Philip Magaldi had a double identity as Paul Morino,36 Alan Dershowitz, Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case (Birmingham, Alabama: The Notable Trials Library, 1986) p. 210.and that he met David Marriott at a bus station, not through a counseling relationship.37Alan Rosenberg, “St. Anthony’s Pastor is Indicted in Connection with von Bülow Case,” Providence Journal-Bulletin, June 12, 1985. Alan Dershowitz, Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case (Birmingham, Alabama: The Notable Trials Library, 1986) p. 262.These details would h ave offered context for the college student’s allegations about Magaldi, and exposed them as part of a pattern. It might also have led Delaney not to make Magaldi “chaplain of the diocesan scouting program.”38Brooks Egerton, “Bishop Hired Two Priests after Suspensions: He Defends Their Work Since Joining F[ort] W[orth] Diocese,” Dallas Morning News, August 12, 1998.

The abuse remained secret until the late 1990s, when Rev. Thomas Teczar39In March 2007 Teczar was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison (“25-Year Sentence for Priest,” Worcester Telegram and Telegraph, March 8, 2007)., also a priest in the Fort Worth area, was charged with aggravated sexual assault. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. As light shone again on misconduct of the clergy, Magaldi’s past behavior suddenly became a matter of interest to local media.

Despite the negative media coverage, Magaldi continued to enjoy strong support from his parishioners: in fact, on August 16, 1998, Magaldi “received a thunderous standing ovation from parishioners when he vowed that news reports about his embezzlement conviction would not force him to leave St. John the Apostle Catholic Church.”40Nita Thurman, “Priest Vows to Keep Job Despite Crime: Churchgoers Applaud Pledge after Embezzlement Reports,” Dallas Morning News, August 17, 1998.

The Past Returns

On November 2, 1998, Thomas Marks—Magaldi’s Worcester, Massachusetts victim—called the Diocese of Providence and told them he had been sexually abused by the Rev. Philip Magaldi. He recounted his experience, and said, “if anybody else has made an allegation against this guy, ask them about the enemas.”41 Fort Worth Documents 0475.

By 1998, Marks’ life was in pieces. Divorced and living with his parents, his children were living with his ex-wife. In attempting to deal with his abuse, Marks used heroin and cocaine for twenty years, got into trouble with the law, and was a street prostitute. He also attempted suicide and was in and out of rehab. His sponsor at Alcoholics Anonymous “advised him there would be no closure unless this [abuse] was addressed.” He called the Providence diocese to “deal with his own personal demons, as well as preventing any other young adult or teenager from further abuse by the Reverend Philip Magaldi, whom he classified as ‘a predator.’” 42Fort Worth Documents 0489-90.Marks wanted to go back to his children and “be the father they never had.”43Fort Worth Documents 0536.

Lt. Robert McCarthy, retired Massachusetts policeman, interviewed Marks and determined he was telling the truth. In Fort Worth, Bishop Delaney read the interview report and was relieved to find “there did not seem to be any immediate danger of publicity.”44 Fort Worth Documents 0449.

On December 19, 1998, Delaney met with Magaldi, who denied everything. He said he had never heard of Marks. Magaldi told Delaney “the Devil was definitely at work” in these false allegations. “I have never performed oral sex on anybody. I have never raped anybody,” he said. He claimed was all “a complete lie.”45Fort Worth Documents 0451. Delaney pointed out a strange coincidence: both the Texas boy and the New England accuser mentioned Magaldi’s interests in enemas. Magaldi said the matter was “diabolical, definitely … diabolical”46Fort Worth Documents 0456. and added that the enemas were “an unfortunate coincidence.”47Fort Worth Documents 0459.

To Magaldi’s surprise, the diocesan investigator talked to Alan Dershowitz. Delaney explained to Magaldi that Dershowitz was “known for his sexual misconduct thing. He’s out to get the Church.” Magaldi said that Dershowitz “has always been very good to me,”48Fort Worth Documents 0461. perhaps not remembering that he and Marriott once gave Dershowitz falsified affidavits. Delaney asked whether Magaldi would take a polygraph and be interviewed in Providence. Magaldi agreed.

Footnotes
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