WEST VIRGINIA
The Charleston Gazette
By Travis Crum
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Philadelphia man denies that Bishop Michael Bransfield sexually abused him when he was a teenager in the late 1970s, according to a statement issued by the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston on Monday.
A man who alleged abuse by Stanley Gana, a former Philadelphia priest, testified in the city’s Court of Common Pleas in April that Gana claimed Bransfield was having sex with a young boy.
The man testified he was on Gana’s farm in upstate New York when Bransfield pulled up in a truck with several teenage boys inside. The man said Gana told him then-Rev. Bransfield had a sexual relationship with a teenage boy in his passenger seat.
The Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston identified the boy in the passenger seat as Ronald Rock, a Philadelphia business executive, according to a statement. Rock was a Lansdale Catholic High School student at the time.
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