PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer
JEREMY ROEBUCK, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
POSTED: Monday, June 8, 2015
A suspended Chester County priest pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal child pornography counts and charges of destroying evidence.
Mark Haynes, 55, previously of SS. Simon and Jude Parish in Westtown, admitted to trading hundreds of pornographic images of children over Instagram and enticing teenage girls he met online to send him explicit photos of themselves.
He contacted the teens while posing online as a 16-year-old girl named Katie Caponetti between 2010 and 2014.
Prosecutors have alleged that he had illicit online contact with 25 minors. And federal investigators previously said they received a host of additional allegations against Haynes since his arrest last year, including reports from three accusers who say the priest molested them in the 1990s.
Haynes has denied he sexually abused anyone, and prosecutors did not charge him in connection with those allegations, saying they appeared to fall outside the statute of limitations.
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