Ex-adviser to Monaco’s royal family sentenced to 3 years in Philly child porn case

EASTON — A Roman Catholic priest and former confidant of the royal family of Monaco was sentenced Monday to more than three years in prison for accessing a trove of thousands of pornographic images of children.

The Rev. William McCandless — a member of the Wilmington-based religious order Oblates of St. Frances De Sales — first came to to the attention of U.S. authorities after a stash of illicit photos and videos was discovered while he was stationed in the tiny nation on the French Riviera and working as an adviser to Princess Charlene, the wife of Monaco’s royal sovereign, Prince Albert II.

And while McCandless, 58, of Elkton, Md., had previously suggested that the case there against him was fueled by petty jealousies over the influence he’d amassed at the royal court, he made no mention of such palace intrigue Monday as he stood for sentencing in the federal courtroom of a Pennsylvania coal town half a world away.

“I do want to acknowledge what I’ve done,” he said, addressing U.S. District Judge Edward G. Smith in Easton. “Words cannot express the depths of my remorse.”

The 37-month prison term that Smith imposed marked a stunning downfall for a priest who across his varied career had served as principal at the Salesianum School, a Catholic high school in Wilmington, Del., and as a U.S. Navy chaplain delivering last rites to 9/11 victims at the Pentagon and eventually rising to the rank of lieutenant commander — all before the Oblates dispatched him to his prestigious posting in Monaco’s royal court.

“There is an evil resident within you,” Smith told McCandless as he ordered him to be immediately taken into custody. “But that’s not why you’re being sentenced or were charged, it’s because you can’t control that evil.”

As the only constitutionally Roman Catholic nation in the world besides the Vatican, which requires its sovereign to be Roman Catholic, the church and its lone parish in Monte Carlo hold an outsized influence in Monégasque affairs. An Oblate priest introduced Albert’s parents — Philadelphian Grace Kelly and Monaco’s Prince Rainier — and ever since a member of the order has served as chaplain to the royal family.

But McCandless’ stature was even more pronounced due to the personal bond he formed with Princess Charlene.

Known as “Father Bill” in the country’s tabloid press, he became a fixture in coverage of the princess, who was said to have considered him one of her closest friends after her marriage to Prince Albert in 2011.

He was reportedly among those at her bedside when she gave birth to the couple’s twins in 2014 and attended their baptism, along with the nation’s then-archbishop, Bernard Barsi.

She named McCandless to an official position on her staff and to the board of directors at her charitable foundation.

His unraveling began shortly after. In 2017, a church volunteer accidentally discovered pornographic images of children on a parish computer.

Word quickly leaked out that Monégasque authorities had opened an investigation into McCandless, and, within months, the Oblates transferred him back to the United States.

Investigators in the European nation transferred evidence to federal authorities here, and within the year agents had raided McCandless’ quarters at his new posting at DeSales University, an Oblate-affiliated school in Lehigh County.

On his computer, they found evidence of repeated visits to sites hosting pornographic images of children and sexually charged stories glorifying in explicit terms the abuse of young boys, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Sherri A. Stephan.

Agents also discovered that after McCandless had learned of the investigation in Monaco months earlier, he searched the internet for advice on “how to get stuff off the cloud,” “how to get off the grid,” and “how to disappear completely.”

“What people saw on the outside was not what was festering on the inside,” Stephan said in court filings leading up to Monday’s sentencing. “He was hiding who he was in plain sight — behind religious garb and a white priest collar, holding himself out to be a man of only good intentions while he searched for child sex abuse images and read stories about little boys being torn apart by sexually violent men.”

Though McCandless would eventually plead guilty to one count of accessing child pornography tied to the evidence unearthed at his office on the college campus, he continues to deny that the illicit photos discovered in Monaco were his. His attorney, Michael J. Diamondstein, has repeatedly questioned how much U.S. authorities relied on the earlier probe conducted by Monégasque investigators — one he has suggested was politically motivated.

In filings as recently as last year, Diamondstein noted that McCandless had begun to receive “very public threats” of retribution after he exposed another palace official’s involvement in attempts to extort people seeking residency cards allowing them to live in Monaco.

After McCandless passed that information on to Albert, that official was demoted, and McCandless, Diamondstein said in filings, began receiving threats that “Father Bill would eventually go to prison.”

Ultimately, though, it was McCandless’ decision to plead guilty — a decision for which Smith, the judge, credited him Monday. He also acknowledged the dozens of letters he’d received from McCandless’ colleagues, former parishioners, and friends, extolling the good he had done across his career in the clergy.

“That’s the problem here,” the judge said. “How do we allow you do all the good that you’ve done while preventing all the bad that came about?”

Diamondstein said that McCandless has since been under a “safety plan” with his religious order, relegated to a home for “tainted priests,” and would never have the opportunity to minister to a congregation again.

For his own part, McCandless — eschewing his priestly collar Monday for a traditional suit and tie — told the judge he was committed to paying the Oblates back for the money they spent covering his legal defense.

“The government wants to paint Father McCandless as a devil in a priest’s collar,” Diamondstein said Monday. “That’s not really true. Very, very few people are all good or all bad … and Father McCandless, if you pull this blip out of his life, has lived an extraordinary life. Better than I have.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that McCandless was sentenced Monday for accessing child pornography starting while he worked in the royal palace. While authorities in Monaco were investigating McCandless after discovering illicit material in 2017 and that probe led to the subsequent investigation in the United States, the charge for which McCandless was sentenced Monday was related only to his accessing of child pornography here. McCandless continues to deny that the porn found in Monaco was his, his attorney Michael Diamondstein says.