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	Ex-Priest Convicted of Sexual Assault on a Child Rocky Mountain News [Fort Collins CO] March 26, 2007 http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_5443677,00.html A Larimer County District Court jury today found former Catholic priest Timothy Evans guilty of sexual assault on a child. Evans, 44, is the first Colorado Catholic priest to be convicted since sweeping allegations of clergy abuse surfaced nationwide in 2002, leading to broad reforms within the church. Prosecutors alleged that Evans pinned a 17-year-old boy while wrestling with him on his bed in the church rectory, then caressed him under his boxer shorts. They said that on one other occasion he grabbed the boy's buttocks with both hands for 20 seconds while hugging him goodbye. The jury was handed the case late Friday afternoon and recessed for the weekend before coming to its decision after about two hours and twenty minutes of deliberation today. Jurors found Evans guilty of two counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust. They also found him guilty of behaving in a pattern of abuse. Evans allegedly committed the acts early in his tenure at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Fort Collins, where he served from 1998 until the Archdiocese of Denver removed him in 2002. He had given the boy a part-time job at the church and the pair allegedly spent hours alone watching televised football games and talking about the boy's "inability to love." During the trial last week, the alleged victim and three other male witnesses testified that Evans caressed them inappropriately. The alleged victim and two of the other witnesses were minors at the time. Evans sat emotionless in the courtroom as the verdict was read and was immediately taken into custody. He faces 10 years up to life in prison when he is sentenced May 30. Evans is set for trial April 2 in Jefferson County on a charge of sexual assault on a child by a person of trust in a pattern of abuse. That stems from an incident prosecutors say happened while he served at Arvada's Spirit of Christ parish from 1995 to 1997.
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