A former Chattanooga priest was indicted Monday on child molestation charges stemming from a report of an assault occurring more than 30 years ago.
William Casey, who served as a priest for Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Chattanooga from 1969 to 1972, was charged with two felony counts of molestation, one for sodomy to carnally know a minor by force and another for fondling or taking indecent liberties with a child, said Marcus McClung, attorney for Scott County Commonwealth in Virginia, where Casey was indicted.
Casey, who also served as a priest in Kingsport, Tenn., is accused of assaulting a boy at Virginia’s Natural Tunnel State Park in 1978, McClung said. Casey now lives in Greeneville, Tenn.
The Virginia charges come just days after Casey pleaded guilty to charges of crimes against nature involving the same victim in North Carolina, McClung said.
“This is obviously the same people doing the same acts,” McClung said. “What happened here is a different instance than what happened in other jurisdictions.”
Officials from Sts. Peter and Paul church could not be reached for comment.
Officials in Scott County began investigating Casey after Warren Tucker, 44, of Jeffersonville, Ind., told authorities that Casey sexually assaulted him during several trips to Scott County while he was a boy.
Although the case is pending and no trial date has been set, the first charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in the state penitentiary, and the second carries a maximum sentence of five years in the state penitentiary, McClung said.
Bishop Richard Sitka of the Diocese of Knoxville, which covers Eastern Tennessee, including Chattanooga, said a man came to diocese officials in mid-April and informed them that he had been sexually abused by Casey in the 1970s, according to a July 28 statement.
Casey came to him the next day and told him “during a private meeting that there was ‘credibility’ to the accusations,” Sitka said.
Sitka said he immediately and permanently removed Casey’s priestly faculties, barring him from ever again serving as a priest.
Concerning the charges in North Carolina, “in return for his plea, he was sentenced to three years in prison, and the sentence was suspended to just 24 months of supervised probation,” Sitka said.
There is no statute of limitations for child molestation in Virginia, McClung said, and the charges in North Carolina will not affect the trial in Virginia.
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