MAINE
Portland Press Herald
By JOHN RICHARDSON, Portland Press Herald Writer
The state Attorney General's Office on Friday released the names of three additional Roman Catholic priests and one nun - all deceased - who were accused of sexually abusing children in five communities around Maine more than 30 years ago.
More than 20 pages of investigative records describe the allegations, although the names of victims and witnesses are blacked out.
In the cases of the nun and two of the priests, a single accuser came forward within the past 16 months to report abuse that occurred in the 1930s or 1940s.
The nun's case is the only one in which a nun has been accused of sexually abusing children in Maine, according to the Attorney General's Office.
The third priest is accused by two women of groping and kissing them when they were girls about 35 years ago in York County, and by a man who said the priest would ask altar boys to strip naked while preparing for Mass at a parish in central Maine. That priest also was accused in the 1950s of keeping girls at his house until 3 a.m., but he denied doing anything inappropriate, according to church records cited in the documents.