CASPER (WY)
Casper Star-Tribune Via Wyoming News Exchange
June 10, 2020
By Seth Klamann
Retired Catholic bishop Joseph Hart will not face criminal prosecution over an allegation that he sexually abused at least one boy in the 1970s, the alleged victim in the case told the Star-Tribune on Tuesday.
It’s the second time the former cleric, who has been accused by more than a dozen men of sexual abuse over a period of decades, has been investigated and not charged by Wyoming prosecutors.
The Natrona County District Attorney’s Office told the alleged victim on Monday there was “insufficient evidence” to support charging Hart, who was the auxiliary and later full bishop of the Catholic flock in Wyoming from 1976 to 2001, the accuser said. The conclusion comes 26 months after the Cheyenne Police Department began a criminal investigation into Hart that resulted in the agency recommending the retired bishop be charged.
“On one hand there was disbelief, but on the other hand was just like, ‘Well, yeah,’” the alleged victim told the Star-Tribune on Tuesday, describing the conversation with the prosecutor’s office. The victim’s allegations were substantiated and deemed credible by the Diocese of Cheyenne in July 2018. “In the back of my mind, that was always an outcome. I never thought it was a slam dunk. But there’s a certain bitter resignation that comes with saying, ‘OK, there it goes, that’s just how it is.’ I can’t believe it.”
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