MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times
David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com May 20, 2015
HASTINGS – Jury selection in the trial of former St. John’s Abbey monk Fran Hoefgen is continuing in Dakota County, where Hoefgen faces charges that he sexually abused an altar boy at a Hastings church where Hoefgen was priest.
Hoefgen, 64, is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct, accused of abusing the altar boy between 1989 and 1991 when Hoefgen was a priest at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Hastings. The altar boy was 9 to 12 years old when the abuse occurred, according to court records.
Hastings police were first notified about the abuse in November 2013. State law allows prosecutors to pursue criminal charges for up to three years after a victim reports sexual abuse to law enforcement, even if the incident is decades old.
Hoefgen was laicized in December 2011. That is a process in which a cleric is made a layperson. He had been placed on restriction by St. John’s Abbey in 2002 after it received credible allegations against him of sexual misconduct.
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