Priest Admits to Rubbing Boys" Genitals

By Dean Pritchard
Winnipeg Sun
July 13, 2015

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2015/07/13/priest-admits-to-rubbing-boys-genitals


A former Winnipeg priest who founded a drop-in centre for youth pleaded guilty Monday to sexually assaulting three boys.

Ronald Leger, 77, will return to court for sentencing early next year. Crown and defence lawyers have agreed to jointly recommend a sentence but did not disclose it to court.

“My client is presently in a therapeutic setting, more than anything to deal with some of these issues and prepare him for what will ... ultimately be a significant incarceratory period,” defence lawyer Saul Simmonds told court.

Leger ran Ron’s Drop-in on Sterling Avenue between 1980 and 1995. Leger admitted to sexually assaulting two boys he met through the centre, the first in 1984 and 1985, the second in the late 1980s, and a third boy in 2004 and 2005.

Court heard the offences involved brief fondling of the boy’s genitals. The first victim was 12 or 13 years old and visiting the drop-in centre when Leger came up behind him and squeezed his genitals, Crown attorney Debbie Buors told court. The boy asked Leger what he was doing and immediately left the drop-in centre.

Leger assaulted the second victim several times, beginning when he was 15. Buors said Legar rubbed the boy’s genitals over his clothes on repeated occasions and asked “how his big boy was doing.” Years later, the then 19-year-old man was visiting Legar’s home when Leger rubbed the man’s genitals over his clothes and told him he should “make babies.”

Leger groped the third then 10-year-old victim in a similar fashion in a school locker room.

Contact: dean.pritchard@sunmedia.ca