Ex-priest admitted to drinking and driving after fatal crash, police say

75-year-old struck an acquaintance on the sidewalk

ROSSMOOR >> Stephen Kiesle, the ex-Oakland priest and sex offender, allegedly admitted to drinking two beers before rolling his car over a curb and fatally striking a man who was walking home with his wife, court records show.

Kiesle, 75, told an officer he drank “a homemade ale and a Pacifico” beer before driving his 2012 Lexus RX350 on the night of April 16. Police say the Lexus ran over a curb, killing 64-yearold Curtis Gunn and injuring his wife.

Four days later, prosecutors filed manslaughter and drunk driving charges against Kiesle, and bail was set at $600,000. A week later, he was released through the Contra Costa Sheriff's Custody Alternative Program, which allows qualifying pretrial detainees to be freed from jail if they wear an ankle monitor or agree to certain restrictions.

The Gunns were walking home from a trivia night when they were struck. Authorities haven't said where Kiesle was driving at the time of the crash.

In an ironic twist, a month earlier Kiesle and the Gunns were teammates in a Rossmoor trivia event sponsored by the Boomers Forever Club. Their team, the “Rossmorons,” finished in second place, losing to the First Place “Et Al's” on a question about Broadway performances, according to the Rossmoor News.

In court records, a Walnut Creek policeman wrote that when officers responded to the crash, Kiesle was trapped in his Lexus and required extraction. He was the only person in his car.

Officer Edward Chance, who determined Kiesle was impaired, wrote in a report that Kielse had “objective signs” of intoxication, including “watery eyes” and smelling like alcohol, in addition to his admission to having two beers. Chance activated his body camera during his exchange with Kiesle, according to court records.

Kiesle was a priest in Oakland, and remained part of the church during the 1970s and 80s, despite a conviction of molesting two boys in 1978. He was defrocked in 1987. In 2004, he was charged with 13 child molestation counts, most of which were later dismissed by a U.S. Supreme Court decision that invalidated California's statute of limitations.

In 2004, he pleaded no contest to a molestation count and was sentenced to prison. After his release for a subsequent parole violation in 2010, he was forced to register as a sex offender and moved into the gated Contra Costa census-designated place of Rossmoor.