Photo: iStockCatholic Deacon and One-Time Attorney Suspended After Pleading Guilty to Solicitation of Children
A Catholic deacon and one-time attorney from Allegheny County has been temporarily suspended from the practice of law after pleading guilty to soliciting lewd images from a police officer posing as a teenage boy online.
December 30, 2019 at 12:59 PM
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A Catholic deacon and one-time attorney from Allegheny County has been temporarily suspended from the practice of law after pleading guilty to soliciting lewd images from a police officer posing as a teenage boy online.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court suspended Rosendo F. Dacal, 75, effective Jan. 29. Dacal pleaded guilty to charges of criminal solicitation of sexual abuse of children and criminal use of communication facility in Washington County last year.
The court's order read: "And now, this 30th day of December, 2019, having received no response to a rule to show cause why Rosendo F. Dacal should not be placed on temporary suspension, the Rule is made absolute, and he is placed on temporary suspension. See Pa.R.D.E. 214(d)(2). He shall comply with all the provisions of Pa.R.D.E. 217."
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Debra Todd did not participate in the decision.
Dacal was arrested after soliciting lewd images from an officer posing as a 14-year-old boy. He was sentenced to community service and was ordered by a Washington County judge to register as a sex offender, according to media reports. Dacal has been suspended by the church.
"Mr. Dacal was improperly communicating with a police officer posing as a teenager, and by his plea of guilty, he has accepted criminal responsibility for that transgression," Dacal's attorney, Robert Del Greco, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in October 2018.
The year in which Dacal was convicted was a landmark year for revelations of clergy sex-abuse, with the release of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's bombshell grand jury report.
The report, which was released in August 2018, exposed seven decades of abuse by clergy members, and said more than 1,000 children had been sexually abused in the state. The release sparked a national debate about accountability for child sexual abuse, and led several states and the U.S. Department of Justice to launch similar investigations.
Release of the report had initially been blocked over due process concerns, since those named in the report would be publicly seen as child abusers even though the report's accusations would never be properly adjudicated in court.
In July 2018, the Supreme Court allowed the report to be released publicly, but ordered that the names of those with due process challenges needed to be redacted—at least temporarily. The court's 31-page opinion announcing its decisions had said that, although the report could be released with the names of specific priests and church officials redacted, those challenging the report's release raised significant constitutional due process issues that the court needed to address.
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