A former Rapid City priest convicted of stealing nearly $260,000 from the diocese has now admitted to filming a teen parishioner in a shower.
Marcin Garbacz is set to plead guilty to engaging in illicit sexual conduct while in a foreign country, according to federal court documents.
Prosecutors will drop charges of child porn possession and witness tampering, and ask the judge to sentence Garbacz to between 4.75-years and 5.9 years in prison.
Garbacz was assigned to a church in Faith when he took a 2011 trip to his home country of Poland, according to the factual basis document he signed.
He went with two women and a 17-year-old boy who was involved with the church. Garbacz paid for the boy's airfare and lodging, and shared a hotel room with him for five nights of the 16-day trip.
He used his cell phone to film the boy showering without his knowledge, which counts as producing child pornography. Garbacz then uploaded five videos to his laptop.
Garbacz eventually left the Faith parish and became a teacher and chaplain at the Rapid City Catholic School System by July 2012, a prosecutor said during a previous court hearing.
The FBI began investigating Garbacz for sex crimes after finding child pornography on one of his thumb drives, according to an affidavit. Agents found the material while searching the device in August 2019 for evidence related to Garbacz’s financial crimes after arresting him at the Seattle airport where he had a one-way ticket to Poland.
Last year a jury found Garbacz guilty of 65 felony financial crimes related to stealing donations from the Diocese of Rapid City. He was sentenced to 7.75 years in federal prison and ordered to pay more than $300,000 in restitution to the diocese and IRS.
The Rapid City diocese suspended Garbacz in 2018 after catching him stealing money. Pope Francis could choose to defrock him.
