A Buffalo priest already on administrative leave has now been charged by federal officials with receipt and possession of child pornography, and the case is drawing renewed attention to a past abuse complaint that never fully went away.
Quick Take
- Federal prosecutors say Father Jeffrey Nowak was charged by criminal complaint with receipt and possession of child pornography.
- Investigators say new information from Scotland reopened the case in March 2026.
- The Diocese of Buffalo says Nowak was placed on administrative leave in August 2019 after abuse complaints.
- The complaint says Nowak faces a five-year mandatory minimum and up to 20 years in prison.
Federal Complaint Brings Old Scrutiny Back
The United States Attorney’s Office in western New York says Father Jeffrey Nowak, a 46-year-old priest from Lackawanna, was charged by criminal complaint with receipt and possession of child pornography. Prosecutors say the case is serious and carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, with a maximum term of 20 years if he is convicted. The complaint also says the investigation was reopened after new information arrived from Scotland.
That detail matters because this was not a random arrest with no history behind it. The Diocese of Buffalo says Nowak had already been placed on administrative leave in August 2019 after abuse complaints were received. BishopAccountability says the earlier allegations involved inappropriate contact with children and harassment of a seminarian, and it notes that Nowak denied those claims. For many Catholics, that timeline will raise hard questions about how long the church kept him sidelined.
What Prosecutors Say Happened
According to the federal complaint, investigators received new information from law enforcement in Scotland in late 2025. That information allegedly linked Nowak to an online group in which child pornography was shared during group Zoom calls. The complaint also ties the case to the username “PigBoy666,” which officials say was associated with Nowak. The arrest was then followed by a reopened investigation in March 2026.
WKBW reports that the criminal complaint says Nowak’s next court appearance is July 9, 2026. That means the case is still at an early stage, and the public record remains limited to the complaint and related reporting. The available sources do not include a full forensic report, a search warrant affidavit, or any defense filing challenging the government’s account. That leaves the complaint as the main public account for now.
Why the 2019 Leave Still Matters
The Diocese of Buffalo’s own administrative leave page lists Rev. Jeffrey Nowak with a date of August 28, 2019. That is a key fact because it shows the priest was already under internal church scrutiny years before the federal arrest. BishopAccountability also says the diocese’s list of accused clergy still showed Nowak on administrative leave in September 2025, which suggests the matter remained open inside the church system. That kind of delay fuels public distrust.
An Upstate New York priest who has been on administrative leave since 2019 faces federal charges of receipt and possession of child pornography following his arrest Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Michael DiGiacomo announced.
Jeffrey Nowak, 46, of Lackawanna, was arrested after…
— Qᴀɢɢ.ɴᴇᴡꜱ (@qaggnews) July 9, 2026
At the same time, the strongest public facts are still the federal complaint and the diocese’s own administrative leave record. The complaint is enough to support the arrest report, but it is not the same as a conviction, and the case will now move through court. For readers who have watched past clergy scandals drag on for years, the larger concern is simple: the system appears to have known enough in 2019 to pull him aside, yet the case did not end there.
Sources:
lifesitenews.com, justice.gov, instagram.com
