AUSTRALIA
ninemsn
Tuesday Oct 25 18:44 AEST
A Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to 13 charges of indecent assault against teenage boys in Melbourne during the 1970s.
Francis (Frank) Gerard Klep, 62, answered "guilty" to each of the 13 charges in the Melbourne County Court on Tuesday.
He was charged in 1998, a month after the church sent him to Samoa to work at a Salesian theological college.
Klep was ordered out of Samoa in 2004 after a US newspaper asked Victoria Police why he was allowed to teach there when he was wanted for child sex offences in Australia.
Before his arrest, Klep slipped in and out of Australia three times without being detected, a court heard last year.
Detective Senior Constable John Raglus told Melbourne Magistrates' Court last year that he had contacted the Samoan government, which discovered Klep had failed to tell authorities of a 1994 conviction for sexually assaulting two teenagers in the 1970s.