ILLINOIS
Belleville News-Democrat
BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK AND BETH HUNDSDORFER
BELLEVILLE
The Rev. Albert E. “Gene” Kreher, a retired priest in the Belleville Catholic Diocese, admitted he regularly slept with but did not molest a 13-year-old boy three decades ago who sought help and later would become a priest himself.
Kreher said Bishop Edward Braxton told him in 2010 to write a letter of apology to the Rev. Stephen Poole, but kept Kreher on as the overseer of the local Boy Scouts council.
In the letter, Kreher described his behavior involving the teen at St. George Catholic Church in New Baden as “very inappropriate.”
“I am sorry that I didn’t offer my apology a long time ago, and regret the possibility that things I did a long time ago contribute to your present difficulties,” Kreher wrote. “I reach out to you praying that someday, somewhere, you will be able to find it in your power to forgive me.”
Kreher has denied he sexually abused Poole. He never faced any criminal charges and was not sued.
Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article127701274.html#storylink=cpy
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