MINNESOTA/INDIA
Wall Street Journal
By KENAN MACHADO
Apr 22, 2016
A Roman Catholic diocese in southern India said Thursday it consulted with the Vatican before reinstating a priest who pleaded guilty last year to the sexual abuse of a minor in the U.S.
The suspension of the priest, Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 61 years old, was lifted by Bishop Amalraj Arulappan from the Diocese of Ootacamund in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, earlier this year, Father Sebastian Selvanathan, a spokesman for the diocese said.
Father Jeyapaul was deputed to serve in the Diocese of Crookston in Minnesota in the U.S. in 2004. He returned to India in September 2005 and two years later, criminal charges were filed against him in the U.S. accusing him of sexually abusing a girl between 2004 and 2005. Father Jeyapaul was suspended from the Indian diocese in 2010.
He was arrested in India in March 2012 and extradited to the U.S. where he was held jail in Roseau, MN. In May 2015, he pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct, according to court documents.
He was released from jail, after having been jailed for three years and four months, and was deported from the U.S. in July 2015.
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