Bond Denied For Defrocked Priest Facing New Sex Abuse Charges

(CBS) -- A Cook County judge denied bond for convicted child molester and defrocked Catholic priest Daniel McCormack, who is facing a new charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse for an alleged 2005 incident involving a minor boy.

McCormack appeared in court on Thursday afternoon, and prosecutors said the alleged victim was 10 and a parishioner at St. Agatha in the 3100 block of West Douglas, where McCormack worked as a priest, the Sun-Times is reporting.

The boy was participating in an after-school program at the church and the alleged abuse happened between September 2005 and December 2005. The alleged victim disclosed the abuse in 2013.

One incident happened after McCormack took the boy to a White Sox game. He allegedly took the boy to his home after the game and fondled him, prosecutors said.

Another time, McCormack invited the boy to his room in the rectory and again fondled him.

McCormack's attorney Daniel Coyne said the former priest is currently receiving treatment and said he suffers a "mental disorder" and is a "sexually violent person."

While Cook County Judge James brown denied bond for McCormack, the judge said he would be able to stay at the treatment center and be transported to the courthouse for future hearings.

In recent days, Chicago Police arrested McCormack at the Department of Human Services treatment facility in Rushville—about 230 miles southwest of Chicago.

McCormack had been serving his sentence at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling, Ill., until he was paroled to the Rushville facility in 2009, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Tom Shaer.

According to a source, there is an ongoing effort to have McCormack committed indefinitely to state custody under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act. The next hearing on the procedure is June 12.

McCormack was originally arrested for sex crimes in January 2006. He was removed from the priesthood in November 2007 and pleaded guilty that year to abusing five children while he was a parish priest at St. Agatha. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

The McCormack saga does not appear to have an end on the civil lawsuit front.

Attorney Lyndsay Markley represents an alleged victim of the former priest. She says her client was sexually assaulted by McCormack when he was around 12 years old.

She will soon take her victim's case to the head of the Archdioce. Her lawsuit outlines years of red flags -- documented untoward behavior that dated back to the early 1990s.

"There were at least four occasions that McCormack almost seemed to be begging for someone to stop him, and no one did," Markley tells CBS 2's Brad Edwards.

On Wednesday night, Susan Burritt, a Chicago Archdiocese spokeswoman, told the Sun-Times she was unaware of McCormack's most recent arrest.

"Daniel J. McCormack is no longer a priest. He was laicized in November 2007," Burritt said in an email, using the formal term for the removal of clerical status.

Barbara Blaine, founder and president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement Wednesday evening: "We are grateful for the victim and police who are working to get Fr. Daniel McCormack locked up again. He's one of Illinois' most egregious predator priests."

Contributing: Sun Time Media Wire (Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2014. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)