Former Episcopal priest Howard White to be extradited to North Carolina on sex abuse charges

By Jacqueline Tempera
MassLive
May 2, 2018

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/05/former_episcopal_priest_howard.html

When Howard White, a former Episcopal priest behind bars in Massachusetts after he raped a prep school student in the 1970s, is released from jail Thursday he will be extradited to face more charges in North Carolina, prosecutors said.

White, 76, is one of six named offenders in the sex abuse scandal at St. George's School in Middletown, R.I.

Last May he pleaded guilty to five counts of assault and battery in Suffolk Superior Court for his abuse of an unnamed former student in the 1970s. He served 12 months of an 18-month sentence and was due to be released on Thursday.

But a new indictment from North Carolina accusing White of raping two more teenagers there will change things, prosecutors said.

The charges are: one count of rape; four counts of second-degree sexual offense; one count of second-degree rape; one count of first-degree forcible sex offense; and two counts of indecent liberties with a child.

White took the student, then 15 or 16, to a hotel in Boston on two occasions. Each time, White took the boy to Anthony's Pier 4 for dinner and to a show. Afterward, White sexually assaulted the boy in their hotel room, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said when the teenagers asked White to stop, he said: "I'll tell you what. It's not going to stop. If you try to stop, I'll make your life difficult."

White was dismissed from the elite Rhode Island prep school in 1974 but went on to work in other parishes including Grace Church in the Mountains in Waynesville, North Carolina.

Two accusers in the Waynesville indictment came forward in the wake of the St. George School scandal in 2015.

One man told The Providence Journal county social services placed him with White at the church rectory when he was 15. He ran away after White raped him several times.

A woman told investigators she was molested by White numerous times between 1984 and the end of 1985. 

Carmen Durso, a lawyer for the Boston victim, told MassLive that White would be extradited to North Carolina "soon."

Though he was scheduled to be released on good behavior on Thursday he will be "treated like a fugitive" and held until North Carolina officials pick him up, Durso said.