School chaplain accused of sex abuse

TRENTON – A Rider University chaplain has been removed from his job while prosecutors investigate claims that he and two other priests sexually abused a teenage girl more than 20 years ago.

Bishop John M. Smith of the Diocese of Trenton said the Rev. Bruno Ugliano’s assignment has been withdrawn due to the allegations.

Ugliano is a member of the Order of St. Benedict at St. Mary’s Abbey in Mendham. Smith has also requested that Ugliano’s superior recall him to the order’s abbey until an investigation is complete.

Ugliano, a former headmaster at the Delbarton School, belongs to an autonomous Benedictine group of 50 monks. He has worked and lived at the university in Lawrenceville since 1995.

The alleged victim, now 38 and living in North Carolina, claims she was sexually abused in the early Eighties by Ugliano; the Rev. Edward Eilert, pastor of St. Philomena’s Church in Livingston, and the Rev. Joseph Rice, chaplain at Bergen Regional Health Care Center in Paramus.

Rice and Eilert have voluntarily stepped down from their positions while the claims are being investigated. Ugliano has maintained his innocence.

School chaplain accused of sex abuse
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
June 27, 2002