NEVADA
Review-Journal
By GLENN PUIT
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Six years before his 2002 arrest for the sexual abuse of five boys, former Henderson priest Mark Roberts was in trouble with church leaders over an incident involving a young man, according to a civil deposition Roberts gave earlier this year.
Around 1996, Roberts said, he was the subject of a church investigation into accusations he inappropriately touched a young man in a shower. The young man was homeless and had requested help washing his clothes, and Roberts took the young man to some apartments where Roberts was staying.
"I asked him to take off his clothes, I would go wash them for him in the washing machine, and that he could take a shower. ... I bought him a scrub brush for his back and different shampoo and different things that he wanted," Roberts said.
"The door of the bathroom was ajar, and so I went inside and I started washing him," Roberts said.
Roberts said the young man reported the incident to then-Vicar General Patrick Leary, who placed Roberts on administrative leave as pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Henderson.
Roberts denied the accusations, and he threatened to appeal any discipline to the church's highest officials in Rome.
Posted by kshaw at December 29, 2004 08:48 AM