PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal
05:09 PM EDT on Tuesday, September 6, 2005
By JACK PERRY
projo.com staff
PROVIDENCE -- The former pastor of St. Mary Church in Cranston was sentenced today to serve three years in prison after he pleaded no contest in Superior Court to charges that he sexually assaulted two teenage altar boys.
The Rev. Daniel M. Azzarone Jr., who had been free on $75,000 bail since his April 2002 arraignment, was immediately sent to the Adult Correctional Institutions after he pleaded nolo contendere to two counts of first-degree sexual assault, according to the state Attorney General's Office.
If the case had gone to trial, Assistant Attorney General J. Patrick Youngs III would have presented evidence that Azzarone, 54, sexually assaulted one of the victims over the course of a year, between November 2000 and November 2001, and the other victim between Aug. 1 and Aug. 31, 2001, according to the attorney general's office.
The victims were both parishoners of the church who served as altar servers, and the assaults took place in Cranston, according to the attorney general's office.