NEW JERSEY
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
October 2, 2017
By Justin Zaremba, jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com
GUTTENBERG — A hearing has found probable cause for the filing of charges against a Catholic priest accused of sexually assaulting a young parishioner two decades ago.
Probable cause was found for charges of first-degree aggravated sexual assault and second-degree sexual assault against the Rev. Michael “Mitch” Walters on Wednesday, according to an official with the Guttenberg court. The case was then transferred from the municipal court up to the Hudson County Superior Court.
A criminal probe into Walters was first announced in 2016 by Road to Recovery, a Livingston-based group that advocates for victims of clergy abuse. Walters, the group alleged, molested a boy at the St. John Nepomucene Parish in Guttenberg in the 1990s.
Months earlier, Walters was removed from ministry at the Our Lady of Sorrows church in South Orange following allegations he molested children at St. Cassian’s Parish in Montclair in the early 1980s.
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