MINNESOTA
In-Forum
By: Stephen J. Lee, Forum Communications Co., INFORUM
CROOKSTON, Minn. – The Catholic Diocese here, in its first official comment since news of the arrest of the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul in India last week on Minnesota sexual assault charges, says it hopes he is returned for trial.
“The only way for this to be resolved is for him to be here, so we would like a resolution to it,” Monsignor David Baumgartner, who, as vicar general of the diocese, serves as the right-hand man to Bishop Michael Hoeppner, told the Grand Forks Herald this week.
Jeyapaul, 57, has been a fugitive for six years for criminal charges first filed in 2006 in state district court in Roseau. He is accused of sexually assaulting a parish member in Greenbush, Minn., when she was 14 and 15 in 2004 and 2005. In 2007, the charges were amended to include similar counts involving a second girl who was 16 during the same period.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.