CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times
A retired Roman Catholic priest in Orange County was sentenced to a year in jail, probation and community service and will be forced to register as a sex offender for molesting a grade-school student in the parish rectory and inside the church more than a decade ago, Orange County prosecutors said.
Denis Lyons, 78, pleaded guilty in March to four felony counts of lewd acts with a child under 14 on four occasions in which, prosecutors said, Lyons sexually assaulted the student at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in Costa Mesa. The boy was in second and third grade when the assaults occurred.
Prosecutors said the molestations occurred between Jan. 1, 1992 and Dec. 31, 1995, when the boy was between 7 and 9 years old. Prosecutors said Lyons, a priest in the Diocese of Orange, molested the boy twice in Lyons’ room in the church rectory and twice in the sacristy, a room within the church where religious garments and sacred vessels are stored.
In addition to the year in jail, Lyons was sentenced to five years of formal probation, 400 hours of community service and will register as a lifetime sex offender, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney’s office.
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