PRIEST KEPT CHILD PORN AS ‘REVENGE' AGAINST GOD

HONESDALE, PA. A New Jersey priest says he was trying to get revenge on God for poker losses when he collected computerized child pornography at his weekend home in Pennsylvania, according to his attorney and court records.

The Rev. Kevin Gugliotta was sentenced Thursday to 111/2 to 231/2 months in the Wayne County jail, receiving credit for 10 months he’s already served.

He pleaded guilty in March to a single count of disseminating child pornography after prosecutors dropped dozens of other charges that he possessed and distributed child porn.

Pretrial records show the 55-year-old Gugliotta told probation officers he felt God was attacking him when he lost poker tournaments and games, and got “revenge” by collecting the porn.

Jim Goodness, director of communications for the Archdiocese of Newark, said Gugliotta has been removed from public ministry since church officials learned of the investigation in September.

Additional discipline, including possible removal from the priesthood, is possible “now that the process in the courts have been completed,” Goodness said.

“We’ve also kept Rome abreast of the situation.”

Gugliotta had previously been suspended from ministry in 2003 for allegedly molesting a teenage boy in the 1980s.

But because the incident occurred when he was still a layman and before he entered the priesthood, the Archdiocese of Newark ruled he could not be punished and quietly reinstated him in 2004.