The sentencing of Romano Ferraro, 70, followed his May 7 conviction in Middlesex Superior Court on charges of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.

Ferraro was assigned to MCI-Cedar Junction. He was also sentenced to 25 years of probation in the event that he gets parole.

Between 1970 and 1980, prosecutors said Ferraro raped and sexually assaulted the male victim, who was between the ages of four and 13 during that time. Ferraro and the victim also knew each other during the alleged misconduct.

Ferraro, an ordained priest, was not assigned to any parish in Massachusetts.

The complaints in the case were initiated in the fall of 2001, before the Archdiocese of Boston disclosed information about Massachusetts priests.

Ferraro was indicted and arrested in the spring of 2002.

In January, a St. Louis man in his 30s sued Ferraro and the Archdiocese of St. Louis, claiming he was raped by the cleric in the 1980s. Ferraro lived in St. Louis in the early 1980s but was not assigned to any parish duties there.

Ferraro also was among 13 priests named as defendants in a $300 million suit filed in 2002 against the Brooklyn Diocese in New York.