WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
The Associated Press
WORCESTER, Mass.— A retired priest extradited from Canada to face allegations of child sexual abuse in Massachusetts pleaded guilty on Wednesday and was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in prison.
The Rev. Paul Desilets, 81, who is diabetic and suffers from an illness caused by childhood polio, entered guilty pleas to 32 assault and battery charges in Worcester Superior Court.
Judge Timothy Hillman also sentenced him to serve 10 years' probation following his release.
Desilets was indicted in April 2002 on charges of molesting 18 altar boys between 1978 and 1984 at Our Lady of Assumption Parish in Bellingham.
He had been living in Canada since 1984, when he moved to a retirement home for clergy in Joliette, Quebec.