MINNESOTA
Crookston Daily Times
By Staff reports
Crookston Daily Times
Posted Mar 19, 2012 @ 12:28 PM
Crookston —
A Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting one and possibly two underage girls in Greenbush while assigned to the Diocese of Crookston in 2004 has been arrested in India, where he had been preaching since 2006 and considered a fugitive. The Associated Press reports that the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 57, appeared in court today, Monday. He will be held in custody pending a formal U.S. request for his extradition, to be filed along with case evidence, government officials said. It could take up to three months to process the extradition request.
Police detained Jeyapaul on Friday, March 16 near the southern Indian town of Erode after Interpol issued an alert, according to police Subinspector Pugal Maran.
Jeyapaul was one of many foreign priests brought to the United States to help fill shortages in American parishes.
“We are grateful to the police and prosecutors in Minnesota and elsewhere for getting this dangerous cleric behind bars. But most of all, we are grateful to Jeyapaul’s victim, for having the courage to report to secular authorities and the compassion to cooperate with them so that this arrest could be made and so that children might be spared unspeakable pain,” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
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