Man testifies that as altar boy, priest raped him in church

MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com May 21, 2015

HASTINGS – A former altar boy at a Hastings church testified Thursday that Fran Hoefgen raped him numerous times in a room behind the altar at a Hastings church where Hoefgen was a priest in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

That former altar boy is now 36, lives in Red Wing with his wife and three children, and testified that he still harbors anger toward Hoefgen, a former St. John’s Abbey monk who was laicized from the priesthood in 2011.

Hoefgen, 64, faces two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in Dakota County.

The man testified Thursday that Hoefgen was at first a nice man who listened to him and helped him with problems that arose in his life. He liked and trusted Hoefgen, he told jurors.

Then he told Hoefgen that he had been touched inappropriately by a family member when he was a young child.

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