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  Summary of Charges against Six Current and Former Priests

Associated Press State & Local Wire
June 2, 2003

Six current and former priests indicted in the last five weeks on sexual abuse charges in Arizona: -Henry Perez faced six felony charges of sexual conduct with a minor and one charge of misdemeanor public sexual indecency.

Perez, a priest in the Phoenix diocese from 1976 until 1984, had sexual contact with two teenage boys in the late 1970s and early 1980s at rectories in Chandler and Glendale, authorities said. Perez died recently.

- Lawrence Joseph Lovell, 55, was indicted on four felony charges - molestation of a child, attempted molestation of a child and two counts of sexual conduct with a minor.

Lovell was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy while he worked as a priest in Prescott from 1976 to 1979.

- Karl Herbert LeClaire, 46, was charged with felony molestation of a child and sexual conduct with a minor.

LeClaire, a former pastor of a parish in Mesa, sexually abused a boy in the late 1990s when the victim was 14 and 17 years old, authorities said.

- Patrick Oliver Colleary, 53, faces three felony charges - attempted sexual conduct with a minor and two counts of sexual conduct with a minor.

Colleary, who had worked as a priest at a Tempe church, had sexual contact with a boy in the 1970s, authorities said.

- Joseph Cervantez Briceno, 56, was charged with felony sexual abuse and six counts of sexual conduct with a minor, as well as a misdemeanor charge of attempted sexual conduct with a minor.

Briceno, who had worked as a priest in the Phoenix diocese, sexually abused a boy several times in the early 1980s, including once in the church sacristy and again in the rectory. He also made sexual advances to the victim's sister, authorities said.

- Paul Francis LeBrun, 47, faces one felony charge of sexual conduct with a minor.

LeBrun, who had served as a youth minister at Catholic parishes in Tolleson and Goodyear, sexually abused a 12-year-old boy in 1991, authorities said.

 
 

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