The Rev. Joseph A. Fredette was extradited to Worcester from Canada yesterday in what Canadian authorities believe is the first instance of a priest being returned across international boundaries to face child sexual assault charges.

Fredette fled Worcester 20 years ago, apparently seeking to avoid criminal charges that he molested teen-age boys in his care at a home under contract to the Department of Youth Services.

He made his way to New York, then Quebec, finally settling in New Brunswick, where he founded a religious commune in an abandoned town called Jailletville.

Fredette, 61, returned to Worcester yesterday in handcuffs to face the charges, escorted by one of the police officers who worked on the original case against him.

Fredette, a former member of the Augustinians of the Assumption and director of Come Alive Inc., a Worcester home for delinquent boys in the 1970s, was handed over to Worcester police by U.S. Marshals at Logan Airport about 2:45 p.m.

"PEOPLE DO CARE'

His return ends nearly two years of efforts to extradite him from Canada, efforts that began after a Telegram & Gazette investigation disclosed he was living on a 240-acre retreat in the unincorporated village north of Moncton, New Brunswick. The investigation began when Dana M. Vyska, now of Pittsfield, told the Telegram & Gazette that Fredette raped him in 1972 while he was in his care at Come Alive.

"This shows that people do care," said Vyska, who was in Worcester yesterday to witness Fredette's return. "What I want to know is why Father Joe was allowed to get into Canada and live there for 20 years." Vyska said some of the boys at Come Alive had complained about sexual molestation at the time, "but nothing was done about it."

"Nobody did anything, including the Department of Youth Services, because we didn't matter. We were throw-away kids," Vyska said.

Fredette was booked at Worcester Police Headquarters prior to the scheduling of his arraignment for this morning in Worcester Superior Court on charges he sexually assaulted boys placed in his care more than 20 years ago.

APPEALS

Fredette had been incarcerated in a New Brunswick jail since Feb. 2, when Judge Paul Creaghan, of the Court of Queen's Bench, ordered Fredette returned to the United States under provisions of the extradition treaty between the two countries. His return was delayed while justice officials considered Fredette's appeals.

Irene Arsenault, communications director for the Justice Ministry in Ottawa, said she has never heard of another extradition case involving a Roman Catholic priest.

U.S. Marshals handed over custody of Fredette to Worcester police Lt. William P. O'Connor and Detective Thomas R. Belezarian, who worked on the original case, behind closed doors in the U.S. Customs Service office at Logan International Airport.

Fredette was led in manacles through a gaggle of television cameramen and newspaper photographers in the international terminal at Logan, while dozens of curious tourists and passers-by stopped to gawk and photograph the spectacle.

The priest arrived on a regularly scheduled Northwest Airlink flight that left Moncton at 1 p.m., arriving at the international terminal along with hundreds of people disembarking flights from Ireland, London, Frankfurt, Zurich and other European destinations.

Fredette did not answer questions from the press at the airport. Nor did he answer reporters at Worcester Police Headquarters when he was whisked from an unmarked police car into the building.

ARRAIGNMENT

Detective Capt. James M. Gallagher said Fredette would be held in the Worcester lockup pending his arraignment today, scheduled for 9 a.m. in Worcester Superior Court.

A public defender has been assigned to represent Fredette for his initial court appearance.

Fredette left Worcester in 1974 as police were preparing to charge him with child sexual assault in connection with allegations that he had sexually molested boys sent to the group home by the Department of Youth Services.

An arrest warrant issued on those charges never was served because he had left Massachusetts.

The statute of limitations for such charges in Massachusetts is ordinarily six years. But the statute of limitations did not apply to the Fredette case because he left the state, according to law enforcement officials.

CASE REOPENED

Worcester police and the district attorney's office reopened the case in July 1992 following stories in the Telegram & Gazette. A Worcester County grand jury indicted Fredette in September and again in October 1992 and the extradition request was approved by Gov. William F. Weld in December of that year.

The allegations against Fredette 20 years ago led to the resignation of key employees and directors of the nonprofit Come Alive home whose concerns about the allegations against Fredette were not taken seriously.

Carol Schmidt, a former Come Alive Inc. board member, resigned over what she said was the refusal of other board members to investigate the allegations.

"I was chairman of that board when it started and I left it because I was not happy with Father Fredette and many others left at the same time," she said in an interview from her Cape Cod home. "I think Worcester could do without him coming back. But I hope to see him get his just deserts."

Robert Kennelly, acting regional manager of the State Division of Retardation for central Maine, was a counselor at Come Alive in the early 1970s. He, too, resigned over the board's refusal to investigate the allegations.

"A LONG TIME'

"I think it's good they've brought him back to stand trial," Kennelly said in an interview from Maine yesterday. "He disrupted life for several people, not that him coming back and standing trial is going to make the hurt any less for any of the people involved in this.

"It has been a long time coming and I feel good that justice is going to be done or is about to be done. And as far as the people who turned the deaf ear 20 years ago, they are going to need to live with that guilt."

Kennelly said those who defended Fredette 20 years ago pointed to the "good work" he had been doing with delinquent boys.

Beverly Melanson, of Charlton, mother of Gary Melanson, one of Fredette's alleged victims, said yesterday she blamed Fredette for many of her son's problems with the law.

"I have a lot of bad memories," she said. "He was in my house. I just feel that man has ruined a lot of people's lives."

Vyska said Fredette's return caused him to want to laugh and cry simultaneously. "What's that all about? I don't know. I do know that Father Joe was all I had at the time. I loved him and looked up to him. And then he raped me."

A Roman Catholic priest who fled to Canada nearly 20 years ago after being accused of sexually assaulting three young boys in Worcester will face only seven of the original 15 charges against him.

The Rev. Joseph A. Fredette was a member of the Augustinians of the Assumption and director of Come Alive Inc., a Worcester home for delinquent boys, when the assaults are alleged to have occurred in the early 1970s. Canadian authorities are to surrender custody of Fredette Wednesday. U.S. marshals are to return him to the United States, then turn him over to Worcester police.

WEDNESDAY OR THURSDAY

Detective Lt. John J. McKiernan said Fredette, 61, will be booked at police headquarters and then held for arraignment. He could be arraigned that day if he returns to Worcester in time for the Wednesday afternoon Superior Court session. The arraignment could be delayed until Thursday morning if Fredette does not arrive in Worcester in time, McKiernan said.

District Attorney John J. Conte said Fredette will be arraigned in Worcester Superior Court on seven of the 15 original charges involving alleged sexual assaults against three victims. The seven charges are all that remain of 15 counts and are contained in two separate indictments handed down by a Worcester County Grand Jury in September and October of 1972.

Conte said Canadian authorities dismissed eight of the original counts after ruling that some were not indictable offenses under the extradition treaty between the United States and Canada and that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute others.

The remaining charges include six counts of committing unnatural and indecent acts against the three boys and one count of assault and battery against one of them, Conte said.

Under provisions of the treaty, Fredette may only be tried on the seven remaining counts, Conte said.

The eight dismissed charges included one count of indecent assault on a child under 14 years, two counts of furnishing liquor to a person under 21 years and five counts of contributing to the delinquency of a child.

Worcester police originally brought six charges against Fredette in 1974 in connection with allegations made on behalf of boys who had been sent to Come Alive by the state Department of Youth Services.

Fredette had founded the group home in 1970 after working 12 years as a teacher and Boy Scout leader at Assumption Preparatory School.

The assaults against some of the boys who had been placed into Fredette's care allegedly occurred in the group home, while others are alleged to have occurred out of state.

Worcester police responded to complaints against Fredette brought by employees and officials of Come Alive Inc. and in 1974 were preparing to arrest him when he fled Worcester.

Fredette is believed to have first gone to the Pope John XXIII Retreat in Cassadaga, N.Y., then to the Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart outside Sherbrooke, Quebec. Both retreats were owned by the Augustinians of the Assumption.

Police were unable to locate Fredette after he fled Worcester and a subsequent warrant for his arrest never was served.

JAILLETVILLE

But police and the Worcester County district attorney's office reopened the case against Fredette after a Telegram & Gazette investigation in the summer of 1992 disclosed that Fredette was living on a 240-acre retreat in Jailletville, a rural area of New Brunswick.

Conte sought Fredette's extradition after the 1992 grand jury indictments. That request was approved by Gov. William F. Weld in December 1992.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Fredette Jan. 13 and Canadian Justice Minister Allan Rock on May 2 ordered Fredette returned to Worcester to face the charges against him.

Fredette was given 30 days to appeal that decision. But the deadline passed yesterday without an appeal being filed.

The Canadian justice minister yesterday ordered the extradition of the Rev. Joseph A. Fredette to Worcester to face criminal charges that he sexually abused boys when he was director of Come Alive Inc.

Justice Minister Allan Rock blocked Fredette's latest attempt to forestall his return to the United States. Fredette took his case directly to Rock in March, rather than file an appeal with the Moncton, New Brunswick, court that ordered his surrender to the United States.

A judge at the Court of Queen's Bench at Moncton, which is similar to an American superior court, on Feb. 2 ruled that Fredette was extraditable under Canadian law and should be returned to this country. Fredette was given 30 days to appeal, but he went directly to Ottawa asking the justice minister to halt the extradition. He has been held at the Moncton Detention Center pending outcome of the proceedings.

30 DAYS TO APPEAL

Michel Vien, a senior counsel for the justice ministry at Ottawa, said Rock detailed his reasons for refusing to block the extradition in a letter to Fredette's lawyer, Troy D. Sweet of Moncton. Contents of the letter are not public, he said. Fredette has another 30 days to appeal this decision, Vien said. Sweet did not return a telephone call to his office.

A Worcester County Grand Jury indicted Fredette in 1992 on charges that he sexually assaulted three boys during the early 1970s after they were placed in his care at Come Alive.

The case was reopened that year when Dana M. Vyska, 37, of Pittsfield, came forward and told the Telegram & Gazette that he was raped by Fredette in 1972, but Fredette fled to Canada. Worcester police were preparing to bring criminal charges against Fredette in 1974 for allegedly sexually molesting boys.

CIVIL SUIT

Vyska was not one of the men involved in the original charges or the 1992 indictments since the alleged rape occurred in New Hampshire. Late last year, he filed a civil suit in New Hampshire, which is pending.

Vyska, who wants to see Fredette returned to this state, said yesterday he was pleased that Rock refused the appeal but said Fredette's legal maneuvering is "crazy." "It's been over two years. Don't they realize what this is doing to people's lives," he said.

Fredette, 61, a former Assumptionist priest, had been living at a hermitage he founded in Jailletville, New Brunswick. An American citizen, he holds landed immigrant status in Canada which entitles him to most rights given to Canadian citizens

The question remains when the Rev. Joseph A. Fredette, 61, will return to Worcester to face criminal charges alleging that he sexually molested children in his care when he directed a Worcester home for delinquent boys.

Irene Arsenault, spokeswoman for the Canadian Justice Ministry in Ottawa, listed the many avenues open to Fredette within the Canadian legal system.

Armand Gaudet, superintendent of the Moncton Detention Center, said Fredette is still at the center, where he was taken on Feb. 2 after a judge ruled that he can be extradited to the United States.

Fredette fled the United States in 1974 just as Worcester police were preparing to bring criminal charges. He has lived in Canada most of that time, settling in New Brunswick in the early 1980s. Fredette, who was born in Waltham of American-born parents, is an American citizen with permanent residency status in Canada.

APPEAL TO MINISTER

Arsenault said Fredette did not exercise his right to appeal within the court that ordered the extradition. He used another legal process by appealing to Justice Minister Allan Rock not to surrender him to the United States. "He can make a case to the minister on whether or not he should be turned over," she said.

The justice minister has 90 days to decide, with a potential 60-day extension. The time began Feb. 2, when the Moncton judge ruled Fredette could be extradited under terms of a treaty between the United States and Canada.

Arsenault said details of Fredette's appeal to Rock are not public under Canadian law. Troy D. Sweet of Moncton, Fredette's lawyer, has declined to discuss the case. The justice minister also can decide whether his decision is public or not, Arsenault said.

Fredette also has the right to go to the federal courts at Ottawa, Halifax, Nova Scotia, or Fredericton, New Brunswick, and he can go to the Canadian Surpreme Court, she said.

He can also pursue what she called a "parallel process" of simultaneously going through different legal channels. Canadian justice authorities usually decide against extraditing a person to another country "for humanitarian reasons," especially if the other country has a death penalty, Arsenault said.

FIVE-YEAR PROCESS

Arsenault said she has been with the ministry five years and remembers one case that took five years, although the process can take as little as a year. At one time Fredette had the right to make four appeals to the Canadian Supreme Court, but the laws have been changed and he has one appeal now.

District Attorney John J. Conte, who brought Fredette's case to a Worcester County grand jury in 1992 and secured indictments, said he is still waiting to hear from the U.S. Justice Department, which forwarded Gov. William Weld's request that Fredette be returned to Worcester.

The legal battle in Massachusetts to get Fredette back to the United States comes when this state is refusing to repatriate five Canadians serving prison time here. Massachusetts officials have expressed concern that the prisoners would get out of jail earlier in Canada.

Kurt F. Jensen, Canadian consul in Boston, said the Fredette case is "a different situation" involving a different treaty. Fredette is accused of crimes, but has not been convicted of anything, the consul said. The priest is exercising all legal options open to him under Canadian law, a system similar to that of the United States, Jensen said.

The Canadians in Massachusetts prisons have been convicted, but under terms of the treaty with Canada can be returned there to be closer to their families or in more familiar surroundings, he said.

 

WORCESTER - The Rev. Joseph A. Fredette has asked the Canadian government to bar his extradition to Worcester to face criminal charges of sexually assaulting boys he supervised at a group home in the early 1970s.

Fredette's lawyer, Troy Sweet of Moncton, New Brunswick, said yesterday that the Roman Catholic priest made the request in writing to Justice Minister Allan Rock in Ottawa. The request, made last week, asked Rock to prohibit the return of Fredette to Worcester.

Sweet declined to comment on the contents of the request, citing lawyer-client confidentiality. He said extradition is at the government's discretion, despite Canadian Judge Paul Creaghan's ruling last month to return Fredette to Massachusetts to face the charges.

30-DAY APPEAL

At an extradition hearing Feb. 2, Creaghan told Fredette he had 30 days to appeal. The former Assumptionist priest has been in custody since that time at the Moncton Detention Center, Sweet said.

Michael Bray, clerk of the Court of Queen's Bench at Moncton, said yesterday that Fredette did not file an appeal in court by last Friday's deadline. He instead exercised his right to appeal directly to the Canadian government. Rock has 90 days to review the case, but can extend that period by another 60 days, Bray said.

Fredette, 60, was arrested in January by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on a warrant issued in response to indictments by a Worcester County grand jury.

The indictments were issued in 1992, after alleged victims testified to abuse they said took place in the early '70s in Worcester when they were adolescents. Some of the assaults are alleged to have taken place at the Come Alive Inc. halfway house, where Fredette was director and live-in counselor.

Fredette ran Come Alive, a home for delinquent boys, from 1970 to 1974, prior to fleeing to New York State and then to Quebec before settling in New Brunswick. He fled to Canada as Worcester police were about to charge him with sexually assaulting boys placed in his care by the state.

He remained a priest after leaving the United States and served at St. Timothy's Church in the Diocese of Moncton until he was removed in 1984 after parishioners complained of financial irregularities.

The priest then established a 240-acre retreat in Jailletville, New Brunswick, where he lived until his arrest.

CIVIL SUITS FILED

Two civil suits have also been filed against Fredette by alleged rape victims.

One suit was filed in Worcester Superior Court on behalf of James P. LaMountain, who alleges that he was subjected to physical and mental harm as a result of offensive sexual contact by Fredette from May 1972 to July 1973 at Come Alive.

Dana M. Vyska of Pittsfield filed a suit in New Hampshire, alleging that while he was in the priest's care in Worcester in 1972 he was taken to a camp in Raymond, N.H., where he was raped.

Both suits also name as defendants the Augustinians of the Assumption, the men's religious order that Fredette belonged to at the time.

PRIEST FIGHTS EXTRADITION IN MASS. SEX CASE Boston Globe March 6, 1994 Author: AP

MONCTON, New Brunswick -- A Roman Catholic priest who fled to New Brunswick after being suspected of raping two boys in Massachusetts is asking the Canadian government to bar his extradition to the United States. Rev. Joseph Fredette, 60, was arrested in January by Bouctouche RCMP acting on a two-year-old warrant. In the early 1970s Fredette taught at a Worcester, Mass., preparatory school, and then became the live-in director of a home for delinquent boys. He disappeared in 1974 as he was being investigated for allegedly sodomizing two boys, ages 13 and 16. At an extradition hearing last month, a judge gave the government the option to send Fredette to Worcester to face justice. Fredette had 30 days to ask Ottawa not to do so. He applied in writing to Justice Minister Allan Rock this week. The minister has 90 days to review the matter and can extend that period by another 60 days. In most cases, the justice department will only refuse to extradite people facing the death penalty.

 

WORCESTER - The Rev. Joseph A. Fredette failed to appeal his extradition from Canada by yesterday's deadline in the Court of Queen's Bench at Moncton, New Brunswick.

Clerk Michael Bray said late yesterday he believes an appeal would have been filed earlier if Fredette intended to appeal.

ANOTHER SUIT

Another civil suit was filed this week by another alleged victim of Fredette. The suit was filed in Worcester Superior Court on behalf of James P. LaMountain by lawyers Carol Topol Orland and Michael G. Allard-Madaus of Worcester.

The suit alleges that LaMountain suffered "great physical and mental harm and damages" as a result of "unpermitted, harmful and offensive sexual contact" by Fredette when he was in his care at Come Alive Inc. from May 1972 to July 1973.

The suit names Fredette and the Augustinians of the Assumption, the men's religious order of which Fredette was a member until 1983.

Dana M. Vyska of Pittsfield has filed a civil suit against Fredette in New Hampshire, alleging that while he was in Fredette's care in Worcester in 1972 he was taken to a camp in Raymond, N.H., where he was raped.

NEXT STEP

Keith McCormick, crown prosecutor for New Brunswick, said the next step is for the Canadian federal attorney general at either Ottawa or Halifax, Nova Scotia, to issue a warrant of extradition. Fredette can still seek a stay of the warrant, but he must do so quickly.

The United States has 60 days under Canadian law to get Fredette back to the United States or he will go free, McCormick said. Fredette, an American citizen, has landed-immigrant status in Canada, which means he is a permanent alien resident with most of the legal rights of a Canadian citizens.

A judge in Court of Queen's Bench on Feb. 2 ordered Fredette held in detention after he found that the former Assumptionist priest could be extradited on American charges that he sexually molested boys in his care when he was director of Come Alive Inc. of Worcester in the early 1970s. Fredette fled to Canada about the time Worcester police were about to bring criminal charges against Fredette and he later settled in Jailletville, New Brunswick, where he has been living for about 10 years.

A MATTER OF PAPERWORK

"If he hasn't appealed, it would be just a matter of paperwork from this point on and the necessary procedures will be started," Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte said yesterday of Fredette's extradition.

Conte said that when the Justice Department received official notification from Canadian authorities that there had been no appeal, they would seek a presidential warrant and U.S. marshals would be assigned to return Fredette to Massachusetts.

Conte said he was not sure how long the process would take.

Staff reporter Gary V. Murray contributed to this story.

MONCTON, New Brunswick - A Canadian judge yesterday ordered the Rev. Joseph A. Fredette returned to Massachusetts to face 20-year-old criminal charges that he sexually molested two boys in his care when he directed a program for delinquent youth.

Fredette, dressed in a wig, a clerical shirt - without white collar - and wearing a green-hooded parka, did not speak during the extradition hearing in the Court of Queen's Bench in The Assumption Building. He declined to comment, and was led away to the nearby Moncton Detention Center by Cpl. Philip Boudreau of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Judge Paul Creaghan told Fredette he has 30 days to appeal, but will stay in jail during that time.

Fredette was represented by lawyer Troy Sweet of Moncton, who asked the judge to postpone the hearing until Feb. 16. Sweet said he wanted time to review the file of evidence compiled by the office of Worcester District Attorney John J. Conte.

Sweet said after the hearing he is not sure whether Fredette will appeal.

Prosecutor Keith McCormick argued that the hearing did not involve evidence, but was to determine whether Fredette should be returned to the United States under terms of the extradition treaty between the United States and Canada.

The judge denied the request to postpone the hearing, and said the hearing that began Jan. 14 should go forward.

THREE ISSUES

McCormick said the issues before the court were whether Fredette was accused of a crime for which he could be sent back to the United States, whether the man before them was the person wanted by law enforcement authorities, and whether the Massachusetts statute of limitations had expired.

The prosecutor said that, under the extradition treaty, the alleged crimes must be comparable in both countries and carry a penalty in both places of at least one year in prison. Massachusetts officials have charged Fredette with unnatural and lascivious acts, and assault and battery, McCormick said. Prison terms can be three years in state prison or two-and-a-half years in jail on the unnatural and lascivious acts, and up to two-and-a-half years on the assault and battery charge.

Canada has a comparable charge of indecent acts on a male that carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.

The judge said he accepted the evidence submitted by Massachusetts and concluded that the alleged crimes were comparable.

He said he also accepted that the man in the courtroom was Fredette and that identity was not an issue.

McCormick said Fredette left Massachusetts in 1974. The state has a six-year statute of limitation on these offenses, but the time stopped when he left Massachusetts.

The affidavits submitted to Canadian justice officials by Conte's office and Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld allege that Fredette sexually abused Gary M. Melanson and another man described in court only by the last name of Henault. The incidents allegedly occurred at Come Alive Inc., a home in Worcester for delinquent boys that Fredette directed, and at a camp owned by Fredette's parents in Raymond, N.H.

The complainants said in their affidavits that Fredette gave them alcoholic beverages and then molested them.

The judge barred the nine Canadian news media representatives from disclosing specific information about the alleged sexual abuse.