Da: Attorney General Taking over Investigation of Sexual Abuse at Western Pa. Catholic School

Tribune-Democrat
January 19, 2014

http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/4088a084320d4b178be047a5e3d05393/PA--Clergy-Abuse-School

EBENSBURG, Pennsylvania — A county prosecutor says the state attorney general's office is taking over the investigation of sex abuse allegations against a Franciscan friar who helped as an athletic trainer at a Roman Catholic high school in Johnstown from 1992 to 2001.

The (Johnstown) Tribune-Democrat (http://bit.ly/1eIO4rL ) reports Cambria County District Attorney Kelly Callihan received a letter Friday from Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

Several former students at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown are suing school officials and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, which formerly ran the school, for the alleged actions of Brother Stephen Baker.

The 62-year-old friar committed suicide Jan. 26 at a monastery in Newry by stabbing himself in the heart. That happened a little more than a week after the Youngstown diocese disclosed financial settlements in alleged abuse cases involving 11 students at another school in Warren, Ohio.

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