BOSTON (MA)
Boston.com
By Denise Lavoie, AP Legal Affairs Writer | September 30, 2005
BOSTON --A defrocked Catholic priest who already served three years in a New Hampshire prison for sexually abusing a child was expected to plead guilty Friday to sexually abusing five other children.
Robert Burns was indicted in April on six counts of raping of a child under 16, and seven counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.
The five victims were all boys who were under 10 when the abuse began, according to the Suffolk District Attorney's office. The abuse allegedly took place from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, while Burns was a priest at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston and at St. Mary's in the Charlestown neighborhood.
Burns' attorney, Timothy P. O'Neill, said Burns has intended to plead guilty since he was charged almost six months ago, although he pleaded innocent at his arraignment.