NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By Justin Zaremba/NJ.com
on February 21, 2014
RANDOLPH — A retired Paterson Diocesan priest is facing a criminal sexual contact charge after he allegedly engaged in unwanted sexual contact with another man while on a bus returning from a wedding he officiated this past November.
Rev. Philip Briganti, 67, of El Paso, Texas, had briefly returned to New Jersey to officiate a wedding at St. Paul’s Church in Prospect Park on Nov. 9, and, after the wedding reception, Briganti was on a bus traveling to a hotel when he engaged in unwanted sexual contact with the man, acting Morris County Prosecutor Fredric M. Knapp and Randolph Township Police Chief David Stokoe said in a joint statement.
The Diocese of Paterson released a statement Friday saying the man notified the diocese of the incident, as he was not sure what county the bus was in at the time it occurred.
The diocese then “immediately called the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office to report the information it had received,” according to the statement.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.