Within the last week, it emerged that the priest had participated in youth retreats and pilgrimages, though without the knowledge of the Newark chancery.
"He engaged in activities that the archdiocese was not aware of and that were not approved by us, and we would never have approved them because they are all in conflict with the memorandum of understanding," archdiocesan communications director James Goodness said May 2, according to New Jersey newspaper The Star-Ledger.
In 2001, Fr. Fugee told police he had twice groped a teenage boy's crotch while they were wrestling in the presence of the boy's family members. One instance took place while he was on vacation with the boy's family in Virginia in 2000, he said, and the other was about a year prior to that.
He was charged with criminal sexual contact and endangering a child's welfare. A jury convicted him of aggravated sexual contact in 2003, but in 2006 an appellate court reversed the conviction, saying the trial court had given inadequate guidance to the jury. During his trial, he had protested that his confession to the police was false and that he had lied.
The priest came to an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor and the Archdiocese of Newark's vicar general in 2007 requiring him to undergo two years of "sex-offender specific counseling/therapy" and avoid unsupervised engagement with minors for the entirety of his ministry.
The agreement specified that this includes prohibitions on "presiding over a parish, involvement with a youth group, religious education/parochial school, CCD, confessions of children, youth choir, youth retreats and day care."