Ex-cardinal charged with sexual assault of teenager
Former cardinal Theodore McCarrick was criminally charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1974, according to court documents obtained by The Washington Post. The charges make McCarrick, who is a former archbishop of Washington,
D.C., the highest-ranking Catholic official in the country to face criminal charges for sex abuse.
McCarrick, 91, was once a highly respected Catholic leader before allegations of his behavior were made public in 2018, and he was later expelled from the priesthood.
It was long assumed McCarrick would not be criminally charged, though some have filed civil lawsuits in New York and New Jersey, alleging McCarrick sexually abused them in those states when they were children.
Marci Hamilton, an attorney with Child USA, said the case was able to be prosecuted because McCarrick was not a Massachusetts resident and the statute of limitations stopped when he left the state.
McCarrick was charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 in a criminal complaint filed by Wellesley Police in Dedham District Court.
In 2019, the Vatican defrocked McCarrick after finding him guilty of sexual abuse, delivering him the most significant abuse-related punishment for a former cardinal in modern Catholic history. Once a major power broker within the church who received accolades, his downfall was considered swift and severe.
According to the police complaint, the alleged abuse by McCarrick started when the man was young and occurred in New Jersey, New York, California and Massachusetts. McCarrick would go on trips with the complainant’s family and would perform Mass for them during weddings and funerals.
In an incident at his brother’s wedding at Wellesley College, the report states that McCarrick told the then-16-year-old that his father wanted the two of them to have a talk.
“You’re being mischievous at home and not attending church,” McCarrick allegedly told the complainantat the time, according to the report. “We need to go outside and have a conversation.”
McCarrick, the man told police, groped his genitals on the campus. McCarrick, he said, led him into a room where he closed the blinds and told him “that he needed to go to confession” and that he would fondle the boy’s genitals “saying prayers to make me feel holy.”