Priest charged in victim tirade

An Orthodox priest whose son is imprisoned for the aggravated rape of a woman in the Fens is accused of confronting the victim at Wednesday’s sentencing hearing, where she told the court the assault has left her paralyzed with fear.

The Very Rev. Joseph F. Purpura, 62, of Westwood, is free on $5,000 cash bail pending his Jan. 19 arraignment in Boston Municipal Court on the charge of witness intimidation.

Prosecutors allege Purpura, an assistant professor at an Orthodox seminary in New York, “instigated a hostile verbal confrontation” with the victim, in court to deliver a victimimpact statement.

He was arrested Wednesday in Suffolk Superior Court after Judge Christopher J. Muse sentenced his son Michael J. Purpura, 38, to 15 to 18 years for the 2015 rape of a woman he stalked from a supermarket to her home on Queensbury Street.

“I miss my life and I miss my job,” the woman told the court. “Now I’m lucky if I can get out of bed in the morning and, if I can, I’m lucky if I can make it through the day without reliving the worst night of my life.”

She said she has lost most of her friends by being “quiet and ashamed ... I have slept under my bed, on my bathroom floor and on my couch more times than I can count.

“I slept with the light on for almost two years,” she said, “and sometimes I still have to put spoons in the freezer overnight so that I can put them under my eyes in the morning to make them less puffy ... I live in fear to the point that it is paralyzing.”

Neither Purpura nor his attorney could immediately be reached for comment.