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  Former Gatesville Episcopal Vicar Sentenced in Sexual Assault of Boy

By Erin Quinn
Waco Tribune-Herald
January 24, 2008

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/01/24/01242008wacgatesvillevicar.html

The 62-year-old man who served as vicar of the Episcopal Church of St. George in Gatesville was sentenced to three years in state prison after a Lampasas County judge found him guilty of sexually assaulting a boy in a Lampasas church rectory.

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Jim Carlton Wooldridge was sentenced at a hearing last week by 27th State District Judge Joe Carroll in Lampasas.

A spokeswoman with the judge's office said the incident happened Dec. 1, 2006, in the rectory at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Lampasas, where Wooldridge lived since 1994. Wooldridge also was fined $5,000 plus court costs following his conviction for second-degree felony sexual assault of a child.

Lampasas police arrested Wooldridge on the charge in January 2007. He was fired from his duties with the churches after the arrest.

In the Episcopal Church, a vicar is a priest in charge of a congregation supported by its diocese. A rector heads a self-sustaining parish. It is possible and common for priests to serve as both at the same time, as Wooldridge did in Lampasas and Gatesville.

According to the spokeswoman, Wooldridge also was charged with a second sexual assault of a boy that allegedly occurred in his truck, but the district attorney chose to only prosecute the incident in the rectory.

The district attorney in Lampasas County did not return a phone call Wednesday for comment.

Contact: equinn@wacotrib.com

 
 

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