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  Ex-City Priest Pleads Guilty

Sudbury Star
June 9, 2011

http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3162747

A former principal of St. Charles College has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting 17 victims in the Sudbury, Toronto and Windsor areas in incidents dating back to 1953.

William Hodgson Marshall, 88, a Catholic priest who is now retired, appeared in a Windsor courtroom Wednesday to answer to the charges, the Windsor Star reported.

He will be sentenced today.

Marshall was first charged in May 2010 with one count of sexual assault related to alleged incidents in Windsor in the early 1980s.

In the ensuing months, 15 more men and one woman, from cities where Marshall was assigned during his five decades as an active priest, came forward to say he had assault them, too.

Ordained in 1951 at age 28, Marshall was moved around before settling at St. Charles College in Sudbury for almost 17 years.

Last fall, Greater Sudbury Police charged Marshall with six counts of gross indecency and six counts of indecent assault related to the Sudbury victims. The Sudbury charges were transferred to Windsor in April.

Windsor Crown attorney Walter Costa said it was a "difficult, emotional day" with the reading of all the victim impact statements, the Toronto Star reported.

But he hopes it was a cathartic experience, he told the newspaper.

"Now that (the victims) have been vindicated, hopefully that will give them the power and ability to enjoy themselves moving forward and not have to carry that secret burden any more."

A joint sentencing submission from the Crown and Marshall's lawyer Andrew Bradie requests a two-year prison term, three years probation and an order to report to the sexual offender information registry and provide a DNA sample, the Toronto paper said.

One of the alleged Sudbury victims is Ted Holland. Holland says Marshall sexually assaulted him on three occasions in 1969. He told his father about the abuse, who went to St. Charles to complain to the principal.

"He said 'My son told me he was touched by a priest,' " Holland told The Star in 2010. "(Then principal Rev. Anthony Lococo) said 'Mr. Holland, your son has a vivid imagination and from the teachers I've spoken to, he tends to daydream in class.' "

Holland said he first tried in 1998 to get Greater Sudbury Police to file charges against Marshall, only to be told, "there is not much we can do."

Bradie, Marshall's Windsor lawyer, has described the disgraced priest as a frail, elderly man battling skin cancer, the Windsor Star said.

One of his earliest postings was as a teacher at Windsor's Assumption College Catholic high school in 1955. Marshall returned to Windsor in 1985, where he was the founding principal of Holy Names high school.

He carried out missionary work on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia from 1989 to 1996.

Upon his return from St. Lucia, he was placed in the Saint Luke Institute in Silver Springs, Md., which offers treatment programs for clerics with psychological or spiritual problems.

He has also served in Sault Ste. Marie.

Most of Marshall's victims were students at all-boys' high schools run by the congregation of St. Basil's, a Roman Catholic order of teaching priests.

The Basilian Fathers, as they are known, ran St. Charles in Sudbury when it was an all-boys school.

The Basilians issued a statement that read in part:

"The Basilian Fathers wish to express our deep shame that one of our members has acted this way. These criminal acts against children are a violation of our religious vows and are grievously sinful ... This should never have happened."

 
 

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