Priest Convicted in Murder-for-Hire Plot

DALLAS (AP) _ A jury has found a former Roman Catholic priest guilty of plotting the death of a man who accused him of sexual abuse.

The Dallas Morning News reports the Dallas County jury of three men and nine women returned its verdict on John M. Fiala Thursday afternoon after a few hours’ deliberation. Then, testimony began in the penalty phase. Fiala could be sentenced to up to life in prison for solicitation of capital murder.

Prosecutors say Fiala tried to hire a neighbor’s brother to kill the man who accused him of abusing him in 2008. That’s when the man was 16 and Fiala was the priest at a rural West Texas parish.

Fiala’s defense attorney argued that the former priest had no true intention of having his accuser killed.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

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Posted by Chace Murphy on May 18 2012. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry