Evidence against Buffalo Diocese priest is especially vile

My reaction to the breaking news on Wednesday of the federal charges against Diocese of Buffalo priest Jeffrey Nowak was simple.

“Holy shit!” I texted a former colleague. “Finally, someone is this whole sordid abuse scandal is getting arrested.”

Nowak has been on administrative leave since 2019, when my colleague Jeff Wick and I broke the story about Nowak’s sexual harassment of a seminarian. That story chronicled the lack of swift action by then-Bishop Richard J. Malone when the allegations were first brought to his attention.

Malone in secret recordings that would lead to his eventual resignation called Nowak a “sick puppy.”

Wednesday night, I downloaded the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court by U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo — the first public glimpse of how “sick” Nowak really is.

The evidence collected by the FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children Squad — initially forwarded to the agency by authorities in Scotland and New Zealand — is truly vile and disturbing. I do not even feel comfortable typing some of the disgusting things here, but you can read the full complaint below.

Nowak is alleged to have accessed Zoom and Telegram calls where child sexual abuse materials were shared. He used the name “PigBoy666,” the feds say, and the disgusting images included pre-pubescent boys and girls performing sex acts on adult men. FBI agents even include a description of a video depicting an adult male “penetrating a toddler.”

It’s truly horrific.

The FBI’s investigation initially led to an IP address “which was registered to Bishop Head Residence, 10 Rosary Avenue, Lackawanna, New York, 14218,” the document states.

On Tuesday, a federal judge signed a search warrant for what appears to be Nowak’s father’s home in Lackawanna.

On Wednesday, federal agents executed the search warrant and took “a cell phone, laptop, iPad, a USB storage device and suspected narcotics.” Nowak even appeared to hide some of the child sex abuse images “inside of a bible case” in his bedroom, the complaint states.

“Some of the titles of the folders on the USB are indicative of child pornography, which included but were not limited to: ‘Perv1’, ‘Perv2’, ‘Perverse Pleasure’, and ‘Satanicals,’” the complaint states. Within another folder, they found a video that a forensic agent said “depicted an adult male penetrating a toddler from behind.”

Again, so very disgusting.

Nowak perhaps surprisingly admitted to FBI agents “that he accessed the child pornography sometimes as frequent as weekly to masturbate.” In another part of the complaint, it says he “may have accessed” the materials “as often as multiple times daily.”

This is wild: The complaint states that Nowak “acknowledged that he last viewed child pornography as early as the morning of July 8, 2026, as the FBI was arriving at his residence.”

Talk about bad timing.

Later, the complaint says that Nowak admitted “that he has a sexual preference of minor boys, as young as toddlers” and that he acknowledged “viewing child pornography depicting infants being subjected to various sex acts, including oral, vaginal, and anal penetration.”

And to think that Nowak was on the altar in a position of power until the day 7 years ago that we broke the story for WKBW. Back then, there were hazy allegations of an incident involving two boys and Nowak in the bathroom of St. John Vianney School in Orchard Park.

The Erie County District Attorney never brought charges against Nowak (and in fact actually charged the seminarian who blew the whistle on Nowak, before later dropping the charges).

The feds are much more skilled in matters like this than the local prosecutor’s office, which for decades has been deferential to the diocese. Finally, after seven years of “administrative leave” limbo by the diocese, Nowak’s day in court has come.

It was interesting to me that diocese spokesman Gregory Tucker said in his statement that law enforcement officials did not even contact the diocese before lodging the charges.

Of course they didn’t, because the Diocese of Buffalo simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing.

The Jeffrey Nowak case is the latest and perhaps the most shocking example of that truth.

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