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	Quebec Priest to Enter Plea to Sex-Assault Charges By Marianne White Vancouver Sun November 7, 2010 http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Quebec+priest+enter+plea+assault+charges/3791433/story.html QUEBEC — A Quebec priest facing multiple counts of sexual assault against 11 boys who attended a private Catholic school in the 1980s is due back in court Monday morning, when he is expected to enter a plea. Raymond-Marie Lavoie, 70, was a teacher at the Seminaire St. Alphonse, in Ste.-Anne-de-Beaupre, just outside Quebec City, when the assaults are alleged to have taken place. A group representing victims of abuse by priests said Friday it has been notified Lavoie will enter a guilty plea Monday morning. Defence lawyer Serge Goulet has said his client doesn't wish to go to trial unnecessarily. A first man, who was 12 at the time of the alleged events, pressed charges against Lavoie in 2008. Quebec provincial police launched an investigation and eventually found other alleged victims: all boarders at the college in the 1970s and 1980s, who were between the ages of 12 and 15 at the time. Lavoie was first arrested in December 2009 and faces charges of sexual assault, indecent assault and gross indecency. Aside from the criminal accusations, Lavoie is facing a potential class-action lawsuit. He is named in a statement of claim filed in April that alleges that up to five priests were involved in the systematic abuse of young boys in the 1980s at Seminaire St. Alphonse. The school, ran by a group of missionary priests, closed in 2001. Among other allegations, the document says the priests "consulted with one another and conspired in an effort to determine which students they would abuse, and divided (the victims) up amongst themselves." Lavoie has been suspended by the church pending the outcome of his case.
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