Former St. Helen’s Seminarian Takes His Own Life in Prison
Former St. Helen Catholic Church seminarian Robert McWilliams took his own life early Friday morning at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
Former St. Helen Catholic Church seminarian Robert McWilliams took his own life early Friday morning at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
McWilliams, 41, was serving a life sentence at Allenwood Low Federal Correctional Institution in Allenwood, Pa., after pleading guilty last July to two counts of sex trafficking of a minor, three counts of sexual exploitation of a child and one count each of transportation of child pornography, receipt and distribution of visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct and possession of child pornography.
“This defendant violated and exploited children in nearly every manner imaginable,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget M. Brennan following McWilliams’ Nov. 9, 2021, sentencing before Judge Sara Lioi of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.
“Using his role in the church, Mr. McWilliams violated the sacrament of confession to identify potential victims, and offered religious counseling to victims he extorted under alter egos he intentionally created to conceal his own identity,” Brennan said. “He also used social media to target and entice young children into the exploitive world of juvenile sex trafficking, all after having already amassed a large collection of violent child pornography.”
On Dec. 22, McWilliams filed a notice of appeal with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons said McWilliams, who had arrived at the Allenwood federal prison on Jan. 31, was found unresponsive just before 1 a.m. Feb. 4.
“ Responding staff immediately initiated life-saving measures. Staff requested emergency medical services and life-saving efforts continued,” public information officer Kristen Castrati said in a statement. “Mr. McWilliams was transported by EMS to a local hospital and subsequently pronounced deceased by hospital staff. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was notified. No staff or other inmates were injured and at no time was the public in danger.”
The Union County Coroner’s Office said McWilliams died by suicide early Friday morning at Evangelical Community Hospital in Lewisburg, Pa.
“We learned this afternoon of the passing of Robert McWilliams,” the Cleveland Catholic Diocese said in a Feb. 4 statement emailed to the Geauga County Maple Leaf. “We place this and all difficult situations in the hands of God. We will continue to pray for the those hurt by his actions. May God be the source of their healing.”
McWilliams was arrested Dec. 5, 2019, at St. Joseph Parish in Strongsville after agents with the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force raided his living space and office.
During the search, officers seized electronic devices, including a cellphone, iPad, laptop and an external hard drive associated with McWilliams. Investigators discovered hundreds of images and videos of child pornography, court documents showed.
Further investigation revealed McWilliams had a Dropbox cloud storage account where he stored more than 128,000 images of child pornography. He downloaded these image files from the internet and stored them in various folders on his computer devices.
The Cleveland Catholic Diocese placed McWilliams on administrative leave following his arrest.
McWilliams was charged with crimes in both Cuyahoga and Geauga counties, but those cases were dropped after charges were filed in federal court on Feb. 21, 2020.
The investigation began with allegations McWilliams had sent an inappropriate text to a teenager at St. Helen Church. That investigation eventually grew to involve ICAC agents and City of Strongsville police.
According to the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, McWilliams served at St. Helen as a seminarian from September 2014 to May 2015. It was considered an internship.
In that capacity, McWilliams served the Life Teen Mass on Sundays at 5 p.m. and took part in the youth activities following the service. He also was actively involved in St. Helen School.
After he was ordained in 2017, McWilliams was assigned to St. Joseph parish in Strongsville as a vicar — a priest who is not the pastor. He occasionally would fill in for St. Helen pastor Jay McPhillips when he was away on vacation.
According to court documents, McWilliams used fake identities and technology to extort minors for sexually explicit images, amass a significant collection of child pornography and provide compensation to minors in exchange for sexual acts. He met some of the victims — the families of at least three of whom were parishioners at St. Helen — through his time in the seminary with the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland and as an appointed parochial vicar at a parish where some of the children and their families were affiliated.
McWilliams used the sacrament of confession to obtain information that he later exploited, by creating aliases, including posing as minor females, to seek the production of sexually explicit material from minors that he was “counseling,” court records showed.
McWilliams enticed three minor victims to send sexually explicit photographs and videos, sometimes threatening to expose embarrassing information that McWilliams already knew about the victims if they did not send such images. When some victims refused to send additional images, McWilliams followed through on his threats and sent sexually explicit photographs to the victims’ mothers.
Court documents also indicated McWilliams used the social networking app Grindr to make contact with a minor victim for the purpose of engaging in commercial sex. He then enticed this minor victim to identify another minor victim with whom McWilliams could engage in commercial sex acts. McWilliams met the victims on multiple occasions for the purpose of engaging in sex acts in exchange for money and alcohol.
In December, Pope Francis decreed that McWilliams had been dismissed from the clerical state for his crimes, meaning he was permanently no longer able to function anywhere as a priest.
