Convicted DuPage Co. pedophile priest set free

More than three years after he was due to be paroled, convicted pedophile priest Fred Lenczycki regained his freedom Thursday.

Lenczycki, formerly of Glen Ellyn, will live in Cook County while continuing his sex-offender treatment as an outpatient. He also must register as a convicted sex offender.

Before his release, DuPage Circuit Judge Bonnie Wheaton gave him a stern warning that his life will remain under a microscope. Lenczycki must report back to court in six months.

He was supposed to be paroled in May 2006 after serving part of a five-year prison term for molesting three boys in the mid-1980s at St. Isaac Joegues Catholic Church in Hinsdale.

But one month before his release date, prosecutors filed paperwork to have him civilly committed beyond his prison term as a sexually violent person. In March 2008, a DuPage County jury agreed.

Lenczycki became the first Roman Catholic priest in the nation to be civilly committed. He had remained in a maximum-security state treatment facility in Rushville until Thursday.

On July 9, Wheaton ruled he could be released under a confidential treatment plan that includes dozens of conditions, such as electronic monitoring, weekly counseling, polygraph tests and sex offender registration.

The restrictions, though, offer little comfort to at least one victim. The man, a married father in his late 30s, said Lenczycki repeatedly molested him, beginning at age 10, at the Hinsdale church.

"He is unequivocally and undeniably a threat until death," he said. "If he's out in the public, he has the ability to harm."

Lenczycki was ordained a priest in the Joliet Diocese in 1972.

He had admitted inappropriately touching 31 boys, ages 9 to 17, while serving in six churches during a 25-year span until 1999, when he took a forced retirement.

The first few crimes involved three boys at Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Naperville until 1975. At his next assignment in Romeoville, two other accusers said they were molested. Lenczycki later inappropriately touched as many as 14 boys at St. Isaac Joegues Catholic Church in Hinsdale.

Other victims followed after he moved to California and Missouri.

Lenczycki technically still is a priest and receives a pension, because the Vatican did not defrock him, but he cannot preside over Mass or perform any other official duties.