Ohio House passes child sex abuse reforms prompted by Father Drew rape case

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WXIX) - Ohio House lawmakers passed legislation Wednesday that reforms child sex abuse laws.

House Bill 322 is the result of a case involving a Cincinnati priest, Father Geoff Drew, who was suspected of sexually grooming young boys for years before he was convicted in 2021 of raping an altar boy more than 30 years ago.

House Bill 322 creates the offense of grooming that prohibits any adult from engaging in a pattern of conduct with a juvenile if the adult and juvenile are in any sort of a relationship such as a priest, teacher, coach or relative.

It specifically prohibits adults from engaging in any sort of pattern of conduct at all with a minor between 13 and 16 if they do not have any sort of relationship.

House Bill 322 also cracks down on those who are required to report child sex abuse. Prosecutors have longer to hold violators accountable by charging them because the statute of limitation is doubled from two years to four years.

Two local lawmakers, House Majority Leader Bill Seitz (R-Green Township) and Cindy Abrams, (R-Harrison) sponsored the legislation.

Wednesday’s vote was nearly unanimous. The lone opposing vote against the measure came from State Rep. Mike Skindell, a Democrat in Cleveland.

Next, House Bill 322 goes to the Senate for hearings and a vote.

If it passes, it will go to Gov. Mike DeWine for final approval.

Seitz was prompted to act when parents clamored for reforms after Father Geoff Drew was indicted in 2019.

“This bill takes three steps forward in our ongoing efforts to stop child sexual abuse, most notably the creation of a new criminal offense against grooming children through a pattern of inappropriate touching or communication designed to entice them into having sex,” Seitz told FOX19 NOW Thursday morning.

“That part of the bill is due to advocacy efforts by parents in Hamilton and Butler Counties. We based our grooming law on one from Indiana. "

Supporters of the bill, Ohioans for Child Protection, said in a statement Thursday that they were grateful to lawmakers and feel this is a big step in furthering child protection in Ohio.

They also said they hope the Senate will prioritize and support “this important public safety issue.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “states that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys will experience sexual assault before the age of 18. With the growth in technology, our children are more accessible than ever before, so Ohio needs to act,” said the group’s co-founder, Rebecca Surendorff.

Other supporting groups of the bill include the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association and Child USA Advocacy.

Drew, 62, worked at several parishes and Catholic schools since 1984.

He began abusing the altar boy in 1988 while the child attended St. Jude School in Bridgetown.

Drew was the school’s music minister at the time.

The victim, who was 10, told authorities the abuse occurred in Drew’s school office after school hours.

Drew was not ordained as a priest until many years later, in 2004. He worked at several local parishes and two parochial schools

Multiple concerns were raised about his behavior around young boys before and after he became a priest, court records show.

The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has come under much criticism for its handling of misconduct complaints against Drew and put out its timeline of events.

Archdiocese officials have repeatedly pointed to all the changes they made over the years to address concerns about church sex abuse.

Still, they conceded “serious mistakes” were made responding to concerns about Drew’s behavior.

If the rape case had not ended in the plea, archdiocese officials might have been compelled to testify under oath about what they knew about Drew and when.

Drew pleaded guilty in late 2021 to nine counts of raping the 10-year-old boy multiple times between 1988 and 1991 and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The victim, Paul Neyer, told FOX19 NOW in an exclusive interview in 2022 that he came forward about Drew in the summer of 2019 after he saw a photo on social media of him performing a baptism.

At the time, Drew was the pastor at St. Ignatius in Green Township.

Just before Drew was publicly accused of sexual assault, the archdiocese suspended him at St. Ignatius after the parents of a teenage boy complained that Drew had sent him text messages.

The messages were not sexual in nature, according to the archdiocese, but they violated child protection rules.

Once Drew was placed on leave, however, church officials disclosed he previously was accused of inappropriate behavior involving children in 2013 and 2015 at another parish in the diocese located just 28.5 miles away, St. Maximilian of Kolbe in Liberty Township.

Parents were upset they were not told that sooner.

St. Ignatius has Cincinnati’s largest Catholic grade school with more than 1,000 students.

The Butler County Prosecutor’s Office investigated a reported pattern about Drew with young boys of uninvited hugs, shoulder massages, patting of the leg above the knee and comments.

In addition, there was a report of Drew texting some of the boys “teasing them about their girlfriends.”

None were found to be criminal.

The bishop at the time, Joseph Binzer, reported the complaints about Drew to authorities but, according to the archdiocese, he failed to report it to the archbishop and priest personnel board.

The Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office also had a similar case involving Drew with the same outcome.

Still, Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser has said he felt Drew was “sexually grooming” the boys for future abuse so he verbally warned the archdiocese’s chancellor to keep Drew away from children and to monitor him.

The archdiocese confirmed that verbal warning and said it was to Rev. Steve Angi.

After Drew’s indictment, Gmoser was upset to learn his warning to the chancellor, which he says was made in a phone call, was not heeded.

Drew requested and received permission to be moved to St. Ignatius during the summer of 2018.

The archdiocese has said Drew was permitted to move there because he wanted to be closer to his mother. They said he was not moved from St. Maximilian because of parishioners’ complaints about him.

Drew initially pleaded guilty to his criminal case and prosecutors prepared for trial.

They disclosed in court records they learned about a second victim of Drew as they gathered evidence in the rape case.

They could not prosecute Drew for the second victim, however, because the statute of limitations had passed, court records show

Drew was sentenced to prison for seven years in a plea deal that his victim approved, received credit for time served in jail since his indictment and is expected to be released in 2026.

His seven-year prison sentence is far less than he would have faced had he been convicted of all charges, up to 99 years.

In a statement released shortly after Drew’s sentencing, the Archdiocese said he “will never again have a priestly assignment” in any diocese.

They also said they were seeking the “laicization” of Drew, so he could not conduct Mass, hear confessions or administer sacraments.

Drew will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.

His victim, all grown up now, confronted Drew in court at his sentencing and told him: “The truth is no amount of time will make up for the child that you murdered.”

A few months later, Neyer came out publicly as a church sex abuse survivor in an exclusive interview with FOX19 NOW and went to Columbus to address lawmakers about state reforms.

He said the nightmare he struggled most of his life to overcome with the help of his loving and devoted wife, their children and his strong and renewed faith at another church, had motivated him to become an activist.

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