By Brooks Baehr
KGMB
July 29, 2005
http://www.kgmb9.com/kgmb/display.cfm?storyID=5565&sid=1183
Ron Gonsalves, a deacon with the Catholic church, was back in a Wailuku courtroom Friday. He is charged with 62 counts of sexual assault against a teenage boy.
Gonsalves was hoping to have his $790,000 bail reduced, but it didn't happen.
Maui Circuit Judge Joel August took himself off the case and postponed the bail hearing before Gonsalves' defense attorney, Philip Lowenthal, could ask that the bail be lowered.
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August didn't explain in court why he recused himself, but Lowenthal's son and law clerk says it has something to do with the fact that Lowenthal and August were long-time law partners.
"We have a code of judicial conduct which kind of lays out the ethical obligations of judges and a big tenant in that is avoid the appearance, just the mere appearance, of impropriety," Ben Lowenthal said.
Gonsalves became an ordained deacon in 1989. In court Friday he appeared like all other pre-trial detainees, wearing handcuffs and orange prison clothes.
Gonsalves was indicted earlier in the week on 30 counts of first-degree sexual assault and 32 counts of third-degree sexual assault.
"The church itself is just hyper-aware of this problem," said Patrick Downes, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.
In recent years, the Catholic church in the United States has been rocked by clergy accused and convicted of sex assault.
"The church has responded strongly with some mandated programs," said Downes. "Every person employed by the diocese has to go through training, sexual misconduct and abuse training so they can recognize sexual abuse when it happens and report it."
According to the diocese, Deacon Gonsalves took that sex abuse training. The court will determine whether Gonsalves ignored the training or has been wrongly accused.
Gonsalves entered a "not guilty" plea Thursday.
Parishioners at St. Ann have said Gonsalves is a wonderful man and they don't believe he abused anyone.
Gonsalves' bail hearing has been rescheduled for Monday morning in front of Judge Shackley Raffetto. His trial is scheduled to begin on September 26.
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