MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune
By Lisa Kaczke
HIBBING — A Hibbing priest accused of sexually abusing four girls was “grooming” the girls and their families by befriending them, St. Louis County prosecutor Jeff Vlatkovich told jurors Wednesday.
“Any time he saw an opportunity to get what he wanted, he took it,” Vlatkovich said in his opening statement as the criminal sexual conduct trial of Brian Michael Lederer began in State District Court in Hibbing.
A 12-year-old girl was the first of the alleged victims to take the witness stand in the trial that is expected to last five days. She recounted the surprise she felt when Lederer allegedly touched her inappropriately several times at Assumption Catholic School in Hibbing, while her father recalled in his testimony the shock he felt on the day his daughter told him about the touching.
“You always think it’ll happen to someone else, in some other town. You don’t think it’ll happen in your family,” the girl’s father said.
However, Lederer’s defense attorney, Peter Wold of Minneapolis, said the allegations are the result of an infatuation the girls had with Lederer, who was described as a young priest beloved by Assumption students. The touching occurred at times when other adults and students were in the room and were nothing more than misperceived and misunderstood moments, possibly caused by hard feelings of rejection and jealousy over Lederer, Wold said. Once two sisters came forward with allegations, it snowballed into four girls making allegations, three of whom were classmates, he said.
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