Niece, 65, did not appear in court and is currently out of the country and on leave from the Catholic Worker house on Kelly Avenue in Half Moon Bay, according to colleagues. He pleaded not guilty to the charge on Oct 16, through his attorney, William Johnston.
A pre-trial conference is scheduled for Nov. 28 and a jury trial for Feb. 19. Niece is not required to appear in person to face the misdemeanor charge and can have his attorney represent him throughout the entire process, said Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.
 Michael Niece |
Officials say the case is a simple one.
"It happened," said Wagstaffe. "This is not so much a sting or an operation. Very simply, this was a 35-year-old woman who had gone to the organization for assistance several times previously over the months." The woman approached Niece for help finding a job and for money to tide her over until she found one, he added.
"He basically said, 'if you want $500, I'll give you $500 if you engage in an act of sex with me,'" Wagstaffe said. "She did the right thing and contacted police.
"He pulled up in his van and the police were there instead," said Wagstaffe. "They arrested him. And they found a sex toy in his van."
Local police say they had received two complaints of inappropriate behavior concerning Niece over the years, but neither warranted any charges.
"Both these cases were thoroughly investigated in 2003 and 2005 and there was not enough evidence to support a prosecution," said Half Moon Bay Police Chief Don O'Keefe. "It was a matter of talking, there was no overt act."
The current charges hinge on Niece's arrival at a meeting place to consummate the telephone deal.
"What may have happened afterward is unknown. If it was just a matter of talking on the phone and not showing up, that would have been one thing," said O'Keefe. "But him showing up - that was the overt act."
Michael and Kathy Niece first came to Half Moon Bay in 2000 and quickly became fixtures in the lives of many migrant families and homeless people in the region. They followed the beliefs of the Catholic Worker movement, a loose confederation of houses across the country founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maturin in the 1930s. The organization is not formally affiliated with the Catholic Church.
Catholic Workers do not have a firm leadership structure. They perform acts of charity and works of mercy in as direct and personal a way as possible. They are also vigorously anti-war and often court arrest through acts of civil disobedience and nonviolent protest. Active Catholic Workers usually live in modest houses with poor or marginalized members of society and lead a communal, cooperative existence of voluntary poverty and self-sacrifice. The organization's Magdalene House on Kelly Avenue is such a place.
The Nieces met as healthcare workers in the East Bay, according to previously published reports in the Review and the San Francisco Chronicle. They threw themselves wholeheartedly into charity work on the Coastside in a house bought for them by retired Silicon Valley venture capitalist and local philanthropist, Mike Scott.
Jose Ornelas, 20, is a member of the first family the Nieces took in.
"We met in 2000," said Ornelas. "We didn't have any money and we just came from living in Tijuana. We were basically homeless." They lived with the Nieces for more than a year.
Ornelas now lives with his parents and two younger sisters in a local affordable housing development. His three older sisters are recently married and his parents work at local nurseries. He still helps take care of the Catholic Worker house and helps distribute food to migrant workers living in cramped trailers on farms throughout the Coastside.
Ornelas said the Nieces taught his family to speak English, helped them with government paperwork, as well as housing, jobs and food. They regularly do such work with many other people, he added, even providing hospice care to a dying member of one family and paying for funeral arrangements.
"We've known them for almost eight years. They've been everywhere with us," said Ornelas. "They've been helping a lot of other families."
He was not prepared for news of Mike Niece's arrest.
"I was in shock when I heard that," Ornelas said. "He never was like that. I don't believe it."
Scott, who is not a Catholic Worker, but whose organization, Coastside Hospitality does much the same work, said the Nieces have been huge assets on the Coastside.
"He got accused of something and let's say that's a pound on the scale," Scott said of the current charge. "But on the other side there's a ton." The couple's arrival on the Coastside was a huge boost for charitable work in the region, he added.
Niece has appeared in a San Mateo County court once before on a minor trespassing charge in 1997 that appears to be related to political protest, said Wagstaffe. That charge was dismissed. An official with the Alameda County district attorney's office said that a Michael Niece with a date of birth in 1942, is in the system with two unspecified misdemeanor charges, in 2002 and 2003, both of which were rejected for prosecution.
If convicted of solicitation in the current case, Niece could face fines and up to six months in jail. But Wagstaffe said the penalty for a first offense would likely be a fine and probation.
The future of the Nieces' charitable work on the coast seemed in doubt this week.
"The Catholic Worker will continue here," said Scott. "Whether it's with Mike and Kathy Niece, I don't know."
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