OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Dennis M . Mahoney
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
A second man has accused a former Columbus Catholic Diocese priest of molesting him in the late 1970s.
The new allegation comes from a man, now 44, who said that in 1978, when he was a highschool senior, he used to drink alcohol and smoke marijuana with the Rev. Samuel Ritchey in the rectory of St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Lancaster.
Ritchey, former pastor at Sacred Heart Church on the North Side, was barred permanently from performing priestly functions last month after the diocese concluded he had sexually abused a male high-school student in 1977.
The new allegation is from an out-of-state man who would tell his story only if not identified.