OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch
By JoAnne Viviano
The Columbus Dispatch • Tuesday April 26, 2016
A Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a minor when he worked at a Columbus school and two parishes in the 1970s has died, according to a spokesman for the Diocese of Columbus.
George Jones said that the Rev. Ronald Atwood, 72, died on Saturday. He had cancer.
Atwood was placed on administrative leave by Bishop Frederick Campbell in July 2013, a day after the diocese received a complaint that Atwood had abused someone from 1976 to 1979, while assigned to Bishop Ready High School on the city’s West Side, St. Stephen the Martyr Church on the Southwest Side and St. Peter Church on the Northwest Side.
After a diocesan board investigated, the diocese sent documentation to the Vatican requesting that Atwood be defrocked. At the time of his death, he was on leave.
Atwood’s death comes less than a month after Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian announced that he had reached a five-figure financial settlement with the Columbus diocese in February 2015 regarding a claim against Atwood.
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