Defrocked Catholic cardinal intercourse assault expenses
Prosecutors in Walworth County have charged the defrocked former cardinal Theodore McCarrick with sexual assault in a 1977 incident.
Wisconsin Lawyer Normal Josh Kaul introduced Monday that the state Division of Justice and Walworth County had charged McCarrick, 92, with one depend of fourth-degree sexual assault.
McCarrick by no means lived or labored in Wisconsin however apparently made visits to the state.
Prosecutors say that McCarrick “engaged in repeated sexual abuse of the sufferer over time,” in line with a DOJ information launch.
Within the incident for which he’s charged, prosecutors stated McCarrick in April 1977 groped the 18-year-old sufferer whereas they had been each staying as friends at a residence on Geneva Lake.
In accordance with a felony grievance, the sufferer was within the lake off a dock when McCarrick and one other grownup man entered the water as effectively. Each groped him and mentioned his genitals, the grievance stated the sufferer reported.
The sufferer tried to get away from the lads and splashed and made noise, he stated, in line with the grievance. He acquired out of the lake with one leg in his swim trunks and ran to the home. He acquired dressed and requested for a experience to the practice station, in line with the grievance.
The sufferer stated McCarrick started sexually assaulting him at age 11. In accordance with the grievance, the sufferer reported a number of incidents by which McCarrick inappropriately touched or assaulted him earlier than he was 18 years previous.
McCarrick took the teenager to lavish events or occasions, the grievance stated. The sufferer additionally reported that McCarrick had taken him to an occasion the place a number of grownup males assaulted him. The sufferer additionally stated McCarrick had intercourse with him the day earlier than the incident on Geneva Lake.
The Walworth County cost is the most recent improvement in a years-long fall from grace for the once-powerful cardinal.
McCarrick can also be charged in a Massachusetts case that alleges he assaulted a teenage boy at a marriage in 1974. He pleaded not responsible in 2021. In February, his attorneys sought to have the case dismissed , saying McCarrick, who lives at a residence for troubled monks in Missouri, has dementia and isn’t competent to face trial.
McCarrick is the one U.S. Catholic cardinal, present or former, ever to be criminally charged with baby intercourse crimes.
Extra: A timeline of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s rise and fall
In accordance with the Related Press , McCarrick’s fall started in 2017 when a former altar boy got here ahead to report the priest had groped him when he was a young person in New York. The subsequent 12 months, the Archdiocese of New York introduced that McCarrick had been faraway from ministry after discovering the allegation to be “credible and substantiated,” and two New Jersey dioceses revealed they’d settled claims of sexual misconduct in opposition to him prior to now involving adults.
Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick in 2019 after a Vatican investigation decided he sexually abused minors, in addition to adults.
The 2-year inner investigation into McCarrick discovered that three many years of bishops, cardinals and popes downplayed or dismissed experiences of sexual misconduct. Correspondence confirmed they repeatedly rejected the knowledge outright as rumor and excused it as an “imprudence.”
The investigative findings launched in 2020 pinned a lot of the blame on Pope John Paul II, who appointed McCarrick archbishop of Washington, D.C., regardless of having commissioned an inquiry that confirmed McCarrick slept with seminarians.
Prosecutors in Wisconsin charged McCarrick after somebody reported the abuse to the state Division of Justice’s ongoing clergy abuse investigation.
Since launching the investigation in 2021, Kaul’s workplace has forwarded two different instances to native legislation enforcement for expenses: 33-year-old Remington Jon Nystrom in Waushara County for an incident that occurred in 2019 and 61-year-old Jeffrey Anthony Charles in Douglas County for incidents that occurred between 2005 and 2010.
The Wisconsin cost in opposition to McCarrick, fourth-degree sexual assault, is a misdemeanor. If convicted, he would resist 9 months in jail and a $10,000 high quality.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
This story might be up to date.
