Prosecutors: Kck Priest in Child Sex Case to Get New Trial Date after Jury Deadlocks

By Katie Bernard
Kansas City Star
November 14, 2019

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article237334879.html

The Wyandotte County District Attorney’s Office intends to bring a new trial against a Kansas City, Kansas, Roman Catholic priest accused of child molestation.

The trial against the Rev. Scott Kallal, 37, will likely be scheduled in April and held in May, Jonathan Carter, the office’s spokesman, told The Star on Wednesday.

Kallal faces two felony counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. His original trial, held in September, ended in mistrial after the jury could not agree on a verdict.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas suspended Kallal in July 2017 after receiving allegations of inappropriate conduct involving two people, one a minor.

Witnesses at the trial and other hearings detailed two alleged 2015 incidents.

The first was at a friend’s graduation party in Bonner Springs, according to testimony at a 2017 preliminary hearing. Kallal allegedly tickled a 10-year-old girl’s breasts twice, against her wishes.

The second came a few months later in the parish hall gymnasium at St. Patrick’s Church when he allegedly touched another young girl’s breasts.

The second victim’s adoptive mother testified in September that she did not see Kallal touch her daughter’s breasts but that she did see him carrying the girl in a way he shouldn’t have.

According to the woman’s testimony she was helping to coordinate appointments for the church’s pictorial directory when she heard her daughter, who was in the gym, scream.

Her daughter ran out the gym door and into the women’s restroom, where she tried to lock herself in a stall, her mother said. Kallal followed behind her, and came out carrying the girl.

The woman testified that she had to tell Kallal to put her daughter down about three times before he did.

Carter, the district attorney’s spokesman, said in an email to The Star that the trial will be scheduled as long as nothing, such as a plea, stops it.

The archdiocese spokeswoman, Anita McSorley, said Wednesday that Kallal will remain on a leave of absence until his trial.