NEW JERSEY
NJ.com
By Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
GUTTENBERG — A Catholic priest is under criminal investigation by the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office following allegations he sexually abused a young parishioner at a Guttenberg church where the priest worked in the 1990’s, a victims rights group said.
The Rev. Michael “Mitch” Walters had been accused by the parishioner at the St. John Nepomucene Parish in Guttenberg of molesting him two decades ago, Road to Recovery, a Livingston-based group that advocates for victims of clergy abuse, announced on Wednesday.
“Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters was stationed in the 1990s at St. John Nepomucene Parish in Guttenberg, New Jersey, in Hudson County, and a man has come forward to allege that he was sexually abused by Fr. Michael “Mitch” Walters at St. John Nepomucene Parish when he was a minor child,” the Road to Recovery stated in an announcement in advance of a press conference it had scheduled for Wednesday morning at the Guttenberg church on Polk Street.
Ray Worrall, a spokesman for Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez, declined to confirm whether the office was investigating the allegations.
“We can’t comment whether or not this office is even involved in an investigation,” Worrall said in an email.
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