Investigation of School Priest Finds No Crime, Police Say

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 9, 2016

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local-education/investigation-of-school-priest-finds-no-crime-poli/nrKNH/

Sandy Springs police announced Monday their investigation involving a Catholic school priest and a juvenile is over and no laws were broken.

The investigation began a week ago, but the school, Holy Spirit Preparatory School, and police released little information about the case, not even what was being investigated.

A police incident report was blank except for listing an unnamed female student at the school’s Long Island Drive campus as the victim and Thomas Flynn as a suspect. Flynn had been listed previously on the school website as chaplain.

Holy Spirit Preparatory School. ERIC STIRGUS / STAFF

Sandy Springs police Sgt. Forrest Bohannon said via email the department’s investigation is closed and referred questions to the school.

The school’s headmaster, Kyle Pietrantonio, declined comment via email Monday, saying the school doesn’t comment on personnel matters.

Mike Petchenik from Channel 2 Action News received a copy of an email from Pietrantonio to parents from a source connected with the school. It reads in part:

“The Sandy Springs Police Department has notified us that it has closed its investigation and there is no evidence of criminal behavior. While we are certainly relieved of that, the decision to remove him from our school was the correct one. According to an update from the Legion of Christ [the order Flynn belongs to], their investigation is ongoing, and our former head chaplain has been removed from ministry until their investigation is complete. As many of you know from our conversations — because the behavior was observed in public at an event — inappropriate boundary-crossing is simply the best way to describe what transpired at that time.”

Flynn is listed as a priest in the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Holy Spirit Preparatory School was founded in 1996. The Long Island Drive campus is near Roswell Road, about two miles south of I-285. The annual tuition is as much as $23,000, according to the school’s website.