MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: March 11, 2014
Attorney’s office memo said it ‘seems unlikely’ that Archbishop John Nienstedt would have touched the boy during a 2009 confirmation photo session.
Archbishop John Nienstedt will not be charged in connection with allegations that he touched a boy’s buttocks following a confirmation ceremony in 2009.
The Ramsey County attorney’s office said Tuesday that it won’t charge Nienstedt because there is “insufficient evidence.”
It “seems unlikely” that Nienstedt would choose that moment to “sexually touch a random boy openly in front of another clergy member, a deacon, and numerous other confirmands while the confirmands’ family members were preparing to document the moment in photographs,” read a memo written by Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Richard Dusterhoft, the office’s criminal division director.
“This case was reviewed by an Assistant County Attorney with many years of experience prosecuting child sex abuse cases,” Duesterhoft’s memo read. “It is that attorney’s experienced and considered opinion that based upon the evidence as presented by police this case could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and should not be charged.
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