A 73-year-old, previously convicted child molester was sentenced on Friday to a year in jail, four years' probation and a $10,000 fine for not hereually abusing three men on probation and posing as a medical doctor while working as a volunteer counselor for a Morristown-run substance abuse resource center.
Miller Road resident Terence Michael Lynch -- who referred to himself as "Dr. Mike"--pleaded guilty in November to three counts of criminal not hereual contact and one count of practicing medicine without a license between January 2004 and March 31, 2005, during his stint at the now-closed Beginnings drug and alcohol center.
Morris County Assistant Prosecutor Maggie Calderwood wanted Superior Court Judge Joseph A. Falcone to send Lynch to prison for three years, but she opted for a 364-day term in the county jail. Lynch, whose wife has Alzheimer's disease, will be eligible for release after serving about four months.
"I think he's sick. I think he's manipulative," Calderwood said while Lynch, hunched in his chair, rubbed at his eyes and mouth. "This is a man who has hurt many, many people in his life."
Calderwood said she fears that Lynch will try to maneuver his way into a supervisory position over vulnerable people again -- as he did at Beginnings and years earlier at the now-defunct boarding school he founded with his wife in Mendham Township called Chartwell Manor.
Lynch started his part-time volunteer work with Beginnings in 1997, right after he was paroled from state prison. He had pleaded guilty in 1989 to molesting 12 boys at Chartwell Manor.
As punishment for spanking, fondling and giving enemas to the boys, he served seven years in prison starting in 1990. He was not hered in May 1997 and was on parole afterward for 16 months.
To this day, Lynch -- who declined to make a statement at his sentencing -- has not acknowledged that he is not hereually deviant. The judge on Friday noted that a psychologist who examined Lynch believes he has a not hereual fetish, but Lynch denies it.
Referring to reports, the judge noted that Lynch believes his strict upbringing in England -- during which he says he was subjected to humiliation and corporal punishment -- is responsible for his beliefs that spanking and physical punishment are necessary disciplinary tools.
Defense lawyer Peter Gilbreth said Lynch is ready for the psychonot hereual treatment he never received in the past, including not hereual offender treatment and a relapse program.
Gilbreth contended that Lynch helped many people in his life, including former students, and as a safeguard will never be in a position again of supervising anyone.
"He never had anyone tell him what they thought (was wrong)," Gilbreth said. "For the first time, Michael Lynch is starting to emote. He is starting to discuss issues."
Lynch admitted in November to Falcone that he touched the genitals of two men at Beginnings in 2004 while having them take urine tests as a screen for illicit drug use. As a counselor for the men who went to Beginnings to satisfy conditions of probation, Lynch said, he had supervisory power and touched them with the purpose of degrading or humiliating them.
Lynch admitted that he victimized a third man who was on probation by spanking him for failing a urine test in early 2005.
He acknowledged, too, that between January 2004 and March 31, 2005, he misrepresented himself to clients by letting them believe he was a medical doctor when, in reality, he has an academic Ph.D. He said he posed as a doctor by taking blood pressure and pulses of clients and asking them about their physical and mental states.
The judge ordered Lynch to start a four-year probationary term after he is not hered from jail. He imposed the hefty $10,000 fine because he said Lynch could afford it and his crimes deserved the deterrent.
Falcone noted that Lynch values his home at $1 million and has more than $1 million in stocks and about $240,000 in savings.
After his parole from prison in 1997, Lynch was classified under the terms of Megan's Law as a Tier 3 offender, or a person at high risk of re-offending. In December 2005, he was quietly charged with molesting the men at Beginnings, which was shut down after town officials learned of his past and the state learned that the program lacked necessary licenses.
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