MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By Richard Chin
rchin@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 11/13/2013 1
St. Paul police said Wednesday that some people have responded to a recent request for victims of sexual abuse by priests to report their experiences to police.
“We obviously have made calls for folks to come forward, for victims to come forward,” said police spokesman Howie Padilla. “Some folks have courageously, bravely come forward to help tell their stories. We’re looking into those.”
At a news conference Oct. 17, St. Paul police appealed to victims to contact them in the wake of the reopening of an investigation of a child pornography case involving a former Hugo cleric.
Earlier, on Oct. 8, police said they were again investigating allegations that the Rev. Jonathan Shelley possessed child pornography on a computer he owned in 2004. Shelley denied the allegation, and the case was closed Sept. 29 after discs turned over to police by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis contained only adult porn.
But a few days later, a Hugo parishioner, who later obtained Shelley’s computer, turned over files to police that he said he had copied from the device’s hard drive.
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