NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A former Union County priest who admitted to NJ Advance Media last year he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old boy was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday in connection with the attack.

Manuel Gallo Espinoza, 52, fled to his native Ecuador in 2003 after his victim told another priest and a nun that the clergyman raped him in the rectory of a Plainfield church that year.

A criminal investigation at the time quickly went dormant. The investigation was reopened after NJ Advance Media highlighted the victim’s case in a lengthy report in July 2015.

Weeks later, Gallo Espinoza admitted in a telephone interview and in email exchanges with a reporter that he carried out the attack, calling it a “mistake” and blaming his victim for enticing him.

“One thing that I am conscious (of) is he was at…