NEW YORK
The New York Times
By SHARON OTTERMANJAN. 21, 2016
A Roman Catholic priest also active in Bronx politics has been suspended from priestly duties because of allegations that he sexually abused minors three decades ago, church officials said on Thursday.
The priest, the Rev. Richard Gorman, is the director of prison chaplains for the Archdiocese of New York, with an office at the archdiocese’s headquarters in Manhattan. He lives in the northeast Bronx, where he has been chairman of Community Board 12, which weighs in on zoning and other matters, since the late 1980s.
Father Gorman stepped down from the board on Thursday.
Reached at the board’s office, George Torres, the district manager, said the mood was “a little surreal right now.”
“A lot of people are in disbelief,” he said.
The abuse was alleged to have occurred in Westchester County, and the Westchester district attorney’s office said it had opened an inquiry into the allegations. According to a notice published on Wednesday in Catholic New York, the newspaper of the New York Archdiocese, law enforcement “had deemed the allegations to be credible, although they have not yet been substantiated.”
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