MINNESOTA
Post-Bulletin
Kay Fate, kfate@postbulletin.com
WINONA — The Diocese of Winona on Friday morning publicly released and added the names of two more priests to their list of accused clerics: Father Harold Mountain and Father Thomas Duane.
Neither name had been released to the public before Friday’s announcement; both are dead.
Bishop John Quinn, in a statement, acknowledges that “these accusations have been deemed to be not manifestly false or frivolous.”
According to documents provided Jeff Anderson and Associates, a law firm that represents several people sexually abused by clerics in the diocese, the accusations against Mountain and Duane came following their deaths.
Mountain served the southeastern Minnesota parishes of Stewartville, Hayfield, Winona, Minnieska and Minnesota City.
The accusation came to light in 2011, but the year it occurred is redacted from church documents. The victim believes he was in second or third grade. He was sent to Mountain’s office for discipline, the report says, but Mountain began to talk about sex, then pulled down the boy’s pants and touched his genitals.
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