NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte Observer
By Tim Funk
tfunk@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Tuesday, Jul. 01, 2014
A Superior Court judge in Stanly County dismissed a child sex abuse charge against a Catholic priest Tuesday, saying the Rev. Joseph Kelleher doesn’t have the mental capacity to go to trial.
Kelleher, now 86, is living in a retirement home in High Point and, according to a statement to the court from his doctor there, suffers from dementia and various physical ailments, including heart disease.
A native of Ireland who was part of the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte for decades, Kelleher was arrested in 2010 after a man came forward to accuse the priest of sexually abusing him in 1977, when he was a 14-year-old boy in Albemarle. At that time, Kelleher was pastor at Our Lady of the Annunciation Catholic Church. The alleged incident happened in the church parlor.
Kelleher was charged with one count of taking indecent liberties with a child. His attorney, Charles Brown of Albemarle, said Tuesday that he had pleaded not guilty. But according to court papers filed in 2011 by Kisha Scott, an assistant district attorney in Stanly County, Kelleher, in speaking with police, “admitted to touching the victim’s penis ….”
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