Former Priest Pleads Not Guilty To New Sex-Abuse Charges

(STMW) -- Convicted child molester and defrocked Catholic priest Daniel McCormack pleaded not guilty Monday to new sexual abuse charges stemming from a 2005 incident.

McCormack pleaded not guilty to three counts of felony aggravated criminal sexual abuse before Judge Angela Munari Petrone, court records show.

At a bond hearing in May, 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 reported previously.

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, prosecutors claim.

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.

He had been serving his sentence at the Western Illinois Correctional Center in Mount Sterling, Ill., until he was paroled to a Department of Human Services treatment facility in Rushville in 2009, the Sun-Times reported.

McCormack has been ordered held without bond in the case, but a judge said he would be able to stay at the treatment center and be transported to the courthouse for future hearings.

He will next appear in court July 23, court records show.

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 This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)