WATERLOO (NY)
Finger Lakes Times
By CRAIG FOX
Finger Lakes Times
cfox@fltimes.com
WATERLOO — A former St. Mary’s Church priest plans to fight allegations that he sexually abused a teenage boy 50 times over two years while the two watched baseball in the rectory of a Rochester church.
The Rev. Dennis Sewar, 54, who served at St. Mary’s in 1997 and 1998, pleaded not guilty in Rochester City Court Tuesday to misdemeanor charges of third-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child for the alleged incidents at the Church of the Annunciation in northeast Rochester.
Court records say the incidents occurred between 1999 and 2001 while the boy visited the rectory to watch baseball on a big-screen television in the priest’s private living quarters.
The documents say the two sat in a double-size reclining chair and that the incidents began with Sewer holding the boy’s hands. The victim’s deposition says Sewar ultimately touched his genital area “on 50 different occasions over the two years.”
“I was uncomfortable with this, but I was afraid to tell him to stop,” the victim says in his deposition.