MASSACHUSETTS
My Fox Boston
LOWELL, Mass. (AP/MyFoxBoston.com) – A high-ranking priest with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is facing a prostitution charge.
Authorities say the Rev. Arthur Coyle was granted $500 bail after pleading not guilty Monday in Lowell to a count of sexual conduct for a fee.
Coyle is the Episcopal Vicar for the Merrimack Region, meaning he oversees several parishes in the area. He lives at the rectory of St. Rita’s Parish in Lowell.
Police say the 62-year-old was arrested just after 5 p.m. Sunday after he was allegedly found with a prostitute behind a Lowell cemetery.
Coyle reportedly gave the prostitute $40 to perform a sexual act, and as proof for police, she showed them the two $20 bills. The woman told police it was the second time he had paid her in return for sexual acts.
Police had reportedly been watching Coyle circle known prostitution spots for close to a year and stopping for known prostitutes more than a dozen times in the past 10 months.
FOX 25 spoke with one of the attorneys representing victims of the Catholic sex abuse scandal who says he is shocked by the hypocrisy of it all.
“You have the supervisor soliciting prostitution and apparently seeking it for months, and on the other hand you have that same person supervising priests with regards to their own sexual activity. It’s not rocket science. There’s a problem here,” Mitchell Garabedian said.
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