For the first time, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been charged with sexual assault on a minor in a US court.

Former American Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, excluded from the priesthood in 2019, was accused on Wednesday of sexually assaulting a minor under 16 at a wedding reception in Massachusetts in 1974, the newspaper reported on Thursday The Boston Globe.

The indictment makes McCarrick is the first person to serve as a cardinal in the United States to face criminal charges for a sex offense against a minor, lawyer for the alleged victim, Mitchell Garabedian, told the newspaper.

McCarrick, 91, former Archbishop of Washington, faces three counts of indecent assault and assault and battery on a person over 14 in a court in Dedham (Massachusetts), according to documents reviewed by the World.

It’s the first time McCarrick is formally indicted by a US criminal court, after several men sued him in New York and New Jersey and claimed that the former cardinal mistreated them in these states when they were children.

The crimes reported in these cases were time barred under the laws of those states., which prevented authorities from laying charges against McCarrick.

In the case of Massachusetts, on the other hand, police were able to press charges because when the events occurred he was not a resident of that state., and the statute of limitations for crimes ceased to apply when he returned to his then-New York home, the newspaper explains.

McCarrick, who now lives in Missouri, has been subpoenaed for appear in court for the first time on August 26.

The alleged victim, who asked not to be identified, told Wellesley, Massachusetts, police that McCarrick was a friend of her family and She began sexually abusing it as a child, traveling with them and spreading it on her visits to New York, New Jersey or California.

On June 8, 1974, when the victim was 16 and at her brother’s wedding reception, McCarrick took him to a room, closed the curtains and told him he “had to confess.” according to the police report.

Next, McCarrick touched his genitals while “praying that he would feel holy” and then asked him to “pray three Our Fathers and a Hail Mary” to “redeem himself from his sins”, add the document.

In 2019, Vatican expelled McCarrick from clerical state after an investigation ordered by Pope Francis and that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith considered the former cardinal guilty of abuse of minors and adults, with aggravation of abuse of power.

At the time, the decision was important since McCarrick was one of the most popular and well-known leaders of the American Catholic Church in June 2018.

McCarrick, who grew up in poverty in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood, has become friend and confidant of presidents, prime ministers, professional athletes and other celebrities and he was publicly known as a tireless peacemaker, a fundraiser for many Catholic causes, and a great “schmoozer” (a person who knows how to be friendly through dialogue and get what he wants).

From the 1990s, silent reports about McCarrick’s inappropriate sexual behavior started going to the Vatican. However, he continued to rise to lead dioceses in New Jersey, Metuchen and Newark, and then Washington DC, where he was appointed cardinal.

Mccarrick it was not suspended until 2018.

(With information from EFE)

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