Suspended Indianapolis priest gets home detention in teen sex abuse case

INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
WRTV-TV, ABC-6 [Indianapolis IN]

November 9, 2022

By Vic Ryckaert

In a letter, the victim described how David Marcotte abused his priest collar to persuade him to undress over video chats

Noblesville – A judge on Wednesday sentenced suspended Indianapolis priest David Marcotte to a year on home detention under a plea agreement that ends his trial on allegations he sexually abused a teenage boy six years ago.

During a hearing in Hamilton Superior Court, Judge Jonathan M. Brown addressed the teary-eyed parents of the victim as he accepted a plea agreement they both begged him to reject.

“Your son deserves some closure so he can put this behind him,” Brown said, addressing the young man’s mother and father sitting in the gallery of his court room. “The last thing your son wants is for him to be found not guilty then walk.”

The victim, now 20, lives in another state and is attending college. In a letter to the court, the young man called Marcotte “the bald-headed pedophile creep in the defendant’s chair.”

“I saw you baptizing babies, marrying young couples, giving communion to every mouth in the church,” the victim said in the letter. “Yet the whole time, you just wanted to see me, if not other boys, without clothes on.”

WRTV does not identify victims of sexual abuse without their permission.

Marcotte pleaded guilty last month to one count of dissemination of matter harmful to minors and admitted he shared lewd images with a boy who was 14 or 15 at the time. Prosecutors, in turn, agreed to dismiss child solicitation and vicarious sexual gratification charges.

Judge Brown handed Marcotte, 35, the maximum punishment allowed under the agreement. After he serves the year of home detention, Marcotte must serve another 18-months on probation. The judge also suspended a 2-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

The deal means Marcotte avoids prison and doesn’t have to register as a sex offender.

Standing at the defendant’s table, Marcotte apologized to the young man and his family in court and promised to prove every day by his actions that he was truly sorry for what he’s done.

“It is my intent to show this court that I mean what I say,” Marcotte said as the victim’s parents looked on in silence.

“This entire legal experience has been all the dis-illusionment a child (and) young man could ever ask for,” the victim said in his letter. “Reliving this experience through the lens of Indiana and Hamilton County law has been salt to an unstitched wound.”

Marcotte worked at St. Malachy Church and School in Brownsburg when he allegedly sent inappropriate images and engaged in sexual conduct with the boy via social media and video chat apps.

Marcotte, ordained in 2014, was suspended on Feb. 12, 2019, just six days after the Archdiocese of Indianapolis said it had learned of the allegations.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said Wednesday that Marcotte remains suspended from the ministry. The archdiocese spokesman declined to say whether Marcotte would have an opportunity to be reinstated to the priesthood.

Marcotte also served at St. Martin of Tours Parish in Martinsville; the University of Indianapolis; Roncalli High School in Indianapolis; and at SS Francis and Clare Parish in Greenwood.

The victim in his letter told the court he’s haunted by the abuse he suffered. He said he’s working through it all and today said he is talented, thick-skinned and strong.

“Molesting me was the worst mistake you’ve ever made,” the young man said. “If there even is a God, he abandoned you a long time ago.”

Photo caption: Defense attorney Jennifer Lukemeyer and suspended priest David Marcotte leave court after his sentencing Nov. 9, 2022.

https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/crime/suspended-indianapolis-priest-gets-home-detention-in-teen-sex-abuse-case