PENNSYLVANIA
The Sentinel
SMETHPORT, Pa. (AP) — A suspended Catholic priest will spend two years on probation — and his bishop already has said the priest’s felony conviction will keep him out of active ministry — for his inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old northwestern Pennsylvania boy.
The Rev. Samuel Slocum, 60, was sentenced Monday in McKean County, where he was convicted last month of concealment of the whereabouts of a child, The Bradford Era reported Tuesday.
“What he’s done, he’s taught my son to lie, to sneak out, to disobey me,” the boy’s mother told the judge, adding that her son no longer believes in God.
Prosecutors say Slocum continued to contact the boy for three months early last year and urged him to lie about their relationship to his mother even after she told the priest to stop seeing the boy. Slocum was not charged with sex crimes, though prosecutors argued some of his messages to the boy — sent on computers and a smartphone the priest gave him — were suggestive and flirtatious.
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