STOCKTON (CA)
The Record

By Jennie Rodriguez-Moore
Record Staff Writer

March 21, 2012

STOCKTON – A Catholic priest accused of child sex abuse testified in his civil trial for the first time Tuesday under questions from the plaintiff’s lawyer.

The Rev. Michael Kelly and the Diocese of Stockton are being sued by a former altar boy who served at Cathedral of the Annunciation under Kelly’s direction during the mid-1980s.

Kelly, now pastor of St. Joachim Church in Lockeford, is accused of touching the boy as he baby-sat him, assaulting him in the priest’s rectory and at a motel and raping him in a wooded area.

“That’s what he said, and it never happened,” Kelly said on the stand.