WEST VIRGINIA
WTOV
By NEWS9
The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston bishop issued a statement Thursday stating he never sexually abused anyone.
The statement comes a day after a man testified during a clergy sex-abuse trial in Philadelphia that he was raped at a home owned by current Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Michael Bransfield. The witness also testified he was told the bishop also sexually abused a boy.
The 48-year-old witness said he saw Bransfield bring several boys to a farm owned by now-defrocked priest Stanley Gana. The witness says Gana told him Bransfield was having sex with one of them.
The man said Gana raped him for years, including at Bransfield’s beach house. The Associated Press does not generally identify people who say they were sexually abused.
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