Prosecutors: NJ priest gets 4 years in 1990s child sex assault
Thomas Ganley, 64, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to child sexual assault dating back almost three decades.
TRENTON, N.J. - Authorities say a New Jersey priest who pleaded guilty to a child sexual assault dating back almost three decades has been sentenced to four years in prison.
State and Middlesex County prosecutors said a Superior Court judge imposed the penalty Monday on the Rev. Thomas Ganley of Phillipsburg, who pleaded guilty in April to second-degree sexual assault.
Sixty-four-year-old Ganley was charged in January, two days after the alleged victim called the state's clergy abuse hotline. The sexual assault case was the first brought by the state's clergy abuse task force formed in September 2018.
Prosecutors say Ganley was a priest at Woodbridge's Saint Cecelia Church during the alleged attacks in the early 1990s. He most recently was a parochial vicar at St. Philip and St. James Catholic Church in Phillipsburg.