Pedophile victim went undercover and wore a wire to nab his camp counselor abuser - earning him a career in the FBI

  • Jim Clemente, 59, was molested by Michael J. O'Hara when he was 15 years old
  • O'Hara was a counselor at a Catholic youth camp in upstate New York 
  • Clemente never spoke about what happened until a decade after the incidents 
  • In 1986, he reported O'Hara to the authorities, who asked Clemente to wear wire
  • O'Hara admitted to Clemente that he was a pedophile since the age of 19
  • Clemente managed to get evidence that put O'Hara in prison for a year
  • Authorities believe O'Hara, who died in 2000, abused at least 200 young boys
  • Clemente says he will sue the New York Archdiocese, which 'knew about O'Hara' 

A former Bronx prosecutor was recruited into the FBI after he secretly wore a wire that would land his onetime camp counselor who molested him and scores of other children in prison.

Jim Clemente, 59, retired from the bureau and is currently a writer for the hit television series Criminal Minds.

Before joining the FBI as an agent, he was a New York state prosecutor in Bronx Family Court.

In 1985, he received a telephone call from his brother that would change the course of his life.

Jim Clemente, 59, is a retired FBI agent who is currently a writer for the television series Criminal Minds

Jim Clemente, 59, is a retired FBI agent who is currently a writer for the television series Criminal Minds

‘My brother called me. He had seen the movie, “Something About Amelia,” and I think Ted Danson played a sex offender,’ Clemente told the New York Post.

‘He said, “We should do something about the director at that camp we were at”.’

Clemente and his brother, Tim, attended a Catholic Youth Organization camp in upstate New York.

It was there that the counselor, Michael J. O’Hara, plied Jim with beer and repeatedly molested him.

Jim Clemente had believed all this time that he was O’Hara’s only victim.

But during the phone call, his brother revealed that he once snuck into O’Hara’s office and found ‘two paper bags filled with pictures of him molesting boys.’

‘I said, “Oh God, I thought I was the only one”,’ Jim Clemente said.

Tim Clemente said he never told his brother about the incident because he suspected O’Hara knew he had seen the incriminating photos.

According to Tim Clemente, O’Hara once pointed a rifle at him and pulled the trigger until a click was heard.

Frightened and ashamed, Tim Clemente confided in a priest, who told him: ‘Say 10 “Our Fathers” and 10 “Hail Marys.”

‘I absolve you of your sin. Don’t ever speak of this again.’

After the phone call from his brother, Jim Clemente, who had not said a word about his experiences for a decade, then called the FBI-NYPD Joint Task Force on Sexual Exploitation of Children.

‘As I was telling the story, I started shaking, shivering,’ he said.

‘I was 15. It was my first time ever being away from home.’

Clemente (right) was recruited into the FBI after he went undercover to gather evidence against the Catholic youth camp counselor who molested him in the 1970s

Clemente (right) was recruited into the FBI after he went undercover to gather evidence against the Catholic youth camp counselor who molested him in the 1970s

Clemente described O’Hara, who was also a youth basketball coach, Catholic school teacher, and a Boy Scout leader, as a ‘tough love’ authority figure.

O’Hara would often shoot his rifle without warning to scare the children, according to Clemente.

Clemente recalled that he and O’Hara were often alone in the woods to close the campground.

O’Hara would compliment Clemente, take him out, and give him beer. He would also frequently discuss the topic of sex.

‘I was really embarrassed,’ he said.

‘I didn’t know he was manipulating me. Eventually he molested me, and he did it again and again.’

When Clemente returned home from camp, he said: ‘I went in the shower, and I turned the light off … and I just cried.

‘That was the day I kind of withdrew from everybody.’

Clemente recalled that his mother noticed something was wrong.

‘She’d say, “Jimmy, you used to be such a happy kid, what’s wrong?” … I never told her before she passed away from cancer,’ he said.

A few months after Clemente reported O’Hara to the authorities, he was asked to help with the investigation.

‘I was no like no f******g way!’ he said. ‘I can’t sit down and have a cordial conversation with this guy!’

Clemente is seen in the above stock image during his time as an agent with the FBI

Clemente is seen in the above stock image during his time as an agent with the FBI

Clemente’s attitude changed when he paid a visit to his alma mater, Fordham University.

It was there that he saw O’Hara sitting at a desk in the university’s registrar’s office.

The sight of O’Hara working at a university ‘makes my skin crawl,’ Clemente thought at the time.

Clemente and O’Hara chatted. During their conversation, O’Hara revealed to Clemente that he had been keeping up on him.

O’Hara knew that Clemente had graduated from Fordham Law School.

He also offered his former camper condolences over his mother’s passing.

‘Oh yeah, I was sorry to hear about your mother’s death,’ Clemente remembered.

‘It creeped me out and it pissed me off.

‘I called the FBI and I said, “I know where he is, wire me up”.’

On the night of Halloween in 1986, Clemente convinced O’Hara to meet with him by saying that he was the only person he could turn to for advice.

‘My heart was racing,’ Clemente recalled.

‘[The agents] came to my house to wire me up. They were late.

‘They gave me this sort of pep talk and instructions.

‘I can remember vividly, hearing my own footfalls as I was walking down the street … conscious of every single sound.

‘I can remember people in costumes walking across the street. It was so bizarre.

‘It felt like there was a billion-watt searchlight pointed at me.’

When Clemente arrived late, an agitated O’Hara ordered a beer and said: ‘You always were a wimp.’

O’Hara then began the conversation by saying: ‘This is about sex, right? It has to do with what happened between us?’

Clemente said he remembered feeling angry about O’Hara’s suggestion that the molestation ‘was something we decided to do together.’

Then, O’Hara, who was 43 at the time of the meeting, revealed the extent to which he was a pedophile.

O’Hara told Clemente that he had been abusing young boys since he was 19 years old.

He said that when he was 19, he asked to work the night shift at an orphanage in Queens so that he would have easy access to young boys.

‘He bragged about it,’ Clemente recalled.

‘He bragged about boys I knew at the camp, he literally went through the list - he had dates and times and places, first names.

‘All well beyond the statute of limitations, which was five years at the time.’

The conversation lasted three hours. Clemente had to eventually leave because the tape was winding down.

‘The detective met me and they took off the wire and I immediately ran to the bathroom and puked my guts out,’ he recalled.

Clemente would meet with O’Hara five more times before he was finally able to get evidence of crimes committed within the statute of limitations.

O’Hara had eagerly shown Clemente incriminating photographs, a couple of which Clemente managed to secretly stash away in his back pocket and take home.

Clemente is seen above at the 2018 Writers Guild Awards in Beverly Hills in February 2018

Clemente is seen above at the 2018 Writers Guild Awards in Beverly Hills in February 2018

It was a critical move because O’Hara threw away some 500 pictures after meeting Clemente.

If Clemente had not palmed the other photographs, it is doubtful there would have been evidence to convict him.

The next year, authorities arrested O’Hara, would eventually was sentenced to a year in prison for child pornography.

After the case, the FBI offered Clemente a job as an agent.

‘It really was the pivotal turning point in my life,’ Clemente recalled.

During his career as an agent, Clemente worked on child trafficking cases and white collar crime.

One of the people he convicted was Father Frank Stinner, the priest whom his brother confided in about O’Hara many years prior.

Clemente told the Post he plans to file a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday against the Archdiocese of New York, which ran the youth camp where he was abused.

Last month, New York’s Child Victims Act went into effect. It gives sex abuse survivors a one-year ‘look back window’ to file ‘ lawsuits for incidents that were past the statute of limitations.

More than 100 lawsuits were filed electronically with courts throughout New York State, most of them against local Catholic dioceses, immediately after the law took effect.

Clemente’s lawsuit is alleging that the archdiocese kept employing O’Hara even though it knew of allegations against him.

O’Hara, who died in 2000, is believed to have victimized at least 200 young boys. The first allegations of wrongdoing against him were made in the 1960s in his hometown of Hewlett, Long Island.

Clemente wants other victims of O’Hara to step forward and ‘join us in demanding justice.’

‘I can tell you from experience, once I went forward and once I confronted him, that’s when I started to turn it around,’ he said. 

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