By Sofia Santana
Orlando Sentinel
November 4, 2010
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/fl-priest-neil-doherty-arrest-20101104,0,7824208.story
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| Neil Doherty |
A retired priest awaiting trial on molestation and sexual battery charges was back in jail Thursday after authorities said he violated the terms of his pre-trial release.
Neil Doherty, a former priest at St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Margate, was being held Thursday evening in the Broward Main Jail without bond.
Doherty, 67, was under house arrest but his GPS-monitoring device showed he left his home for at least 17 minutes during the weekend of Oct. 24, said Broward Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright. Doherty told authorities he had left his home to attend a funeral when the GPS device lost contact, Coleman-Wright said.
A Broward judge issued a warrant for Doherty's arrest on Oct. 25, and Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies picked him up at his Lake Worth home Tuesday and booked him into the Palm Beach County Jail. Doherty was transferred to the Broward jail Thursday.
Doherty was initially arrested in 2006 when a man came forward with allegations Doherty had molested, drugged and raped him in the 1990s when he was 7 and that the abuse continued until he was 14.
Doherty also has been accused in more than a dozen lawsuits of drugging and molesting young boys in alleged incidents dating back to 1973. Most of the cases have been settled out of court, records show.
Doherty retired in 2002.
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