ST. LOUIS (MO)
One News Now
[Friends of Fr. Joseph Jiang web site]
Monday, July 6, 2015 | Charlie Butts (OneNewsNow.com)
An organization that represents victims of molestation in the Catholic Church claims an accused priest’s charges of libel and slander are false.
The priest, Joseph Jiang, serves the church in St. Louis under Archbishop Robert Carlson. He was accused of molesting a boy and a teenage girl, and after those charges against him were dropped, he filed a lawsuit against the accusers’ parents, police and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
“In two different jurisdictions, two sets of police officers and two sets of prosecutors found these reports credible and filed criminal charges against Jiang,” explains David Clohessy, SNAP’s executive director. “There’s also a civil child sex abuse case against Jiang, and yet he feels compelled to go on the attack.”
Although the charges against the priest were dropped in both cases, Clohessy notes that one prosecutor has stated she hopes to refile them.
“I think it’s just disingenuous for Archbishop Robert Carlson or Father Joseph Jiang to pretend that this means he’s been exonerated,” the SNAP executive director laments. “In neither case when the charges were dropped did either prosecutor criticize victims, witnesses or whistleblowers or file any kind of charges of perjury or anything of the sort.”
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