LOS ANGELES (CA)
Ventura County Star
By staff and wire reports
June 1, 2005
LOS ANGELES -- A retired Roman Catholic priest will stand trial next week for allegedly molesting a boy in the 1990s.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin June 9 in the case against Michael Wempe, who faces three counts of committing a lewd act on a child and one count of oral copulation of a person under 16.
The current case stems from charges filed in September, months after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling voided 42 other sexual abuse allegations against Wempe. The alleged victim, now in his mid-20s, is the brother of two previous alleged victims.
Wempe, who is free on bond, was first charged with molesting five boys across Southern California between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. The charges were thrown out when the nation's high court struck down a California law that erased the statute of limitations on sexual abuse cases from 1988 and earlier.
Posted by kshaw at June 1, 2005 05:39 AM