Somerville Priest Arrested on Charges of Repeated Indecent Assault of a Child Parishioner over 10 Years

By Melanie Dostis
Boston Globe
September 7, 2012

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2012/09/somerville_priest_arrested_on.html

An Episcopal priest in Somerville was arrested this afternoon on charges of repeated indecent assault of one of his child parishioners over a 10-year period, the Middlesex District Attorney's office said.

Reverend Paul A. LaCharite, 65, of Boston was arrested on one count of assault with intent to rape a child and three counts of indecent assault and battery on a child, said the district attorney's office.

"We allege that this defendant, holding a trusted position within the Episcopal Church, indecently assaulted and touched the victim over several years, only ending his 10-year-long predatory abuse of the victim when the defendant left the church," Middlesex District Attorney Gerald T. Leone Jr. said in a statement.

LaCharite began inappropriately touching the child in his office in the 1990s, Leone's office said.

The victim was in elementary school at the time and his family were longtime parishioners at St. James Episcopal Church in Somerville, where LaCharite worked as a priest, the statement said.

The alleged assaults stopped when the victim was a teenager and LaCharite left St. James Epsicopal Church. The victim revealed the priest's alleged abuse to authorities this week, the statement said.

The Somerville Police Department is investigating the allegations against LaCharite.

Contact: melanie.dostis@globe.com