Banko, John (Fr.)

Father John Banko was ordained on May 20, 1972, by the Diocese of Trenton, NJ, after working as a seminarian at St. Mary’s. In 1992, a victim reported that Banko touched him inappropriately and made advances when he was a teenager in 1972 after the two went to a movie and consumed alcohol in his room at the seminary. This encounter was documented in a memorandum to Archbishop Keeler on March 24^th, 1992; although Banko is not named in the document, it is listed in his file. There is no record of the Archdiocese reporting the abuse to authorities.

In 2002, a survivor reported Banko sexually abused them from 1970 to 1980, starting from age seven. The survivor said the abuse happened in the seminary, the survivor’s home in Homeland, and Banko’s car. He further stated that Banko would abuse him when visiting his family and claimed his parents would be harmed if he ever told anyone. In 2003, Banko was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of an 11-year-old altar boy between 1993 and 1994 and was sentenced to 18 years. He was sentenced to an additional 26 years in prison in 2006 after being convicted of sexually assaulting another boy in 1994 and 1995. John Banko died on February 29, 2016.