Jury Recommends 7 Year Sentence for Priest Convicted of Sex Abuse

WHAS
November 29, 2016

http://www.whas11.com/news/crime/lou-priest-convicted-of-1-count-of-sexual-abuse-not-guilty-on-2nd-count/358295473

Joseph Hemmerle

A jury has recommended a seven-year sentence for a Louisville priest convicted of sexual abuse.

The Rev. Joseph Hemmerle was convicted Tuesday of indecent or immoral practices with a child under 15 at his Catholic summer camp in the 1970s.

The 74-year-old priest testified Tuesday during a trial in Meade County that he would occasionally apply calamine lotion to the genitals of child campers, with their permission. But he testified that he never abused the alleged victim, Michael Norris.

Norris said when he was 10 years old, Hemmerle stood him on a stool with no clothes and sexually abused him in Hemmerle's personal cabin.

The Meade County jury earlier Tuesday found the Rev. Joseph Hemmerle guilty of one count of indecent or immoral practices with a child under 15 at his Catholic summer camp in the 1970s. He was found not guilty of a second count and faced up to 10 years in prison.