PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer
JEREMY ROEBUCK, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Wednesday, March 4, 2015
A lawyer for a suspended Chester County priest “emphatically denied” accusations his client abused three young parishioners as a federal judge ordered the man detained Wednesday on separate child pornography charges.
The mounting allegations against Mark Haynes prompted U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel to reverse a lower court’s decision releasing the priest. Stengel said the allegations, if true, establish a “consistent pattern of predatory conduct toward minor children.”
Haynes, 55, previously of SS. Simon and Jude Parish in Westtown, stands charged with trading hundreds of pornographic images of children over Instagram and enticing 25 teenage girls he met online to send him explicit photos of themselves.
According to court filings, he used the alias “Katie Caponetti” while communicating with the teens online.
But federal prosecutors on Tuesday revealed a host of other allegations that have surfaced since Haynes’ arrest in October, including reports from three accusers who say the priest molested them in the ’90s.
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