Sensational confession halts priest’s trial

Press, 22 August 1979, Page 9

Sensational confession halts priest’s trial

NZPA-Reuter Wilmington (Delaware) A Roman Catholic priest who was being tried as the “Gentleman Bandit” for a series of armed holdups was freed yesterday after another man confessed to the crimes. Judge Andrew Christie immediately halted the trial and sent the jury home. The prosecution had just concluded its case. Seven witnesses had identified the priest, Bernard Pagano, aged 53, as the soft-spoken welldressed bandit who had held them up with a pistol and stolen a total of $2OOO in cash. The priest had pleaded not guilty saying that he was a victim of mistaken identity.

According to press reports his bishop had said after he was arrested that the priest’s arrest did not surprise him because he was “a known liar.” His parishioners, however, believed the priest’s story and raised $12,000 for his defence fund. The judge in the case has ordered a trial for the man who admitted committing the six robberies that Father Pagano was charged with. The jury will reconvene tomorrow for fresh instructions from the judge. Father Pagano was former assistant pastor of St Mary’s Refuge of Sinners Church in Cambridge, Maryland. He was charged with robbing five suburban Wilmington stores and at-

tempting to hold up a sixth in January and February this year. Seven employees of the held-up shops separately identified Father Pagano in a police line-up on March 7. Father Pagano’s lawyer, Carl Schnee, said that newspaper photographs, published before the lineup was held, as well as the state police’s handling of the investigation, had suggested to the crime victims that the clergyman was their assailant The man who confessed to the crimes was named as Ronald Clouser, aged 39, of Brookhaven, Pennsylvania. Clouser’s lawyer told the court that his client would exonerate Father Pagano.