SAN ANDREAS, Calif. (AP) - A Roman Catholic priest who spent 39 years at parishes within the Diocese of Stockton has been indicted on criminal child molestation charges.
A Calaveras County grand jury indicted the Rev. Michael Kelly on Monday on three counts of lewd and lascivious conduct on a child and one count of oral copulation.
Prosecutors allege the abuse started when the victim was 10 years old and a parishioner at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in San Andreas.
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District Attorney Barbara Yook says her office will work to have Kelly extradited from Ireland, where he fled in 2012 after a civil jury found him liable for raping a former altar boy at St. Joachim’s Church in Lockeford during the 1980s.
The Stockton Diocese paid $3.5 million in damages in that case and is planning to file for bankruptcy this week.
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