MAINE
Portland Press Herald
BY EDWARD D. MURPHY
STAFF WRITER
A former Catholic priest who was at the center of the Boston sex abuse scandal has been indicted on 29 counts of sexual abuse in Maine dating back three decades.
The indictments against Ronald Paquin were handed down by a York County grand jury on Tuesday. Paquin is accused of having abused two boys that he took to Kennebunkport in the 1980s.
Paquin pleaded guilty in 2002 to repeatedly raping a Haverhill altar boy between 1989 and 1992. The rapes began when the boy was 12.
Kennebunkport Police Chief Craig A. Sanford said the Maine case was referred to his department by the state Attorney General’s Office, which was approached by one of the alleged victims in 2011. Sanford said the acts occurred at a “seasonal location,” but neither he nor Kathryn Slattery, the York County District Attorney, would provide any more details. The dates range from Nov. 1, 1985 to Aug. 20, 1988.
Paquin was laicized, or removed from the priesthood, in 2002 and was jailed on the rape charges until 2015. The Boston Globe reported in October 2015 that two medical specialists said that Paquin, 72 at the time, no longer met the criteria to be considered sexually dangerous. The paper also said that court records indicated that after his release Paquin would seek treatment in either New York or Massachusetts and eventually move to Maine, where he would also seek sex offender treatment.
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