CALIFORNIA
Daily Pilot
By Lauren Williams
August 24, 2012 | 1:03 p.m.
A former Costa Mesa priest was sentenced Friday to one year in jail and five years formal probation for committing lewd acts on a child younger than 14 while he served at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, according to prosecutors.
Denis Lyons, 78, previously pleaded guilty in March to four felony counts of lewd acts on a child younger than 14 between 1992 and 1995 while he served as a priest at the Costa Mesa church, the Orange County district attorney’s office said.
Lyons molested the boy for three years when the child, a student at the church’s school, was between 7 and 9 years old, prosecutors said. The victim reported the abuse to Costa Mesa police in 2008, and Lyons was arrested while playing cards at a community center near his Seal Beach Leisure World home, according to the D.A.’s office.
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