NEW YORK (NY)
Fox 5 TV
September 14, 2018
By Sharon Crowley
[VIDEO]
As the Catholic Church grapples with an on-going worldwide scandal of clergy-child sex abuse, Fox 5 took a closer look at why accused priests were so often able to avoid criminal prosecution. We found that the church is often reluctant to move forward on these cases but sometimes the accused priests have law enforcement in their corner as well.
“My basketball coach and priest began sexually assaulting me and some of my classmates,” said Shaun Dougherty, who lives and works in Long Island City now. But when he 10 and living in Pennsylvania, a Catholic priest repeatedly sexually abused him, he said.
“He worked his way up my thigh and began fondling my genitals,” Dougherty said. “When it first happened, you think, ‘What was that?'”
Dougherty did not report what he says happened to him until he was an adult, long after Pennsylvania’s statute of limitations had expired. The priest he accused was never prosecuted. He moved to another parish and retired.
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