DOVER (DE)
Associated Press
February 1, 2018
Delaware prosecutors for the first time have brought criminal child molestation charges against a Catholic priest.
An indictment issued by a grand jury Monday charges 76-year-old John A. Sarro with first-degree unlawful sexual intercourse and second-degree unlawful sexual contact.
The charges involve a girl who was under the age of 16. Sarro is accused of fondling her sometime between September 1991 and August 1992 by touching her breasts. Prosecutors allege he later had oral sex with the girl between July 1993 and July 1994.
Sarro was one of several priests, both living and dead, about whom the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington disclosed in 2006 that it had received admitted, corroborated or otherwise substantiated allegations of sexual abuse.
In 2011, after seeking bankruptcy protection amid widespread allegations of child sex abuse by priests, the diocese agreed to pay more than $70 million in a settlement with nearly 150 alleged victims of sexual abuse.
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