BOSTON (MA)
ItemLive [Lynn MA]
December 20, 2023
By Ryan Vermette
St. Michael’s Church in Marblehead held a listening session following its usual Sunday morning service last weekend after news of a charge of aggravated felonious assault against former priest Richard Losch was first reported in the Marblehead Current.
Losch, a former priest at St. Michael’s Church, will be going on trial in summer 2024 after being accused of assaulting a 13-year-old Marblehead boy in the 1970s.
Losch, 89, also a former Boy Scout leader in town and assistant headmaster at Tower School, was indicted back on Aug. 18 by a Grafton County, N.H. grand jury. According to the Current’s report, Losch took four boys, including the victim, who asked to be identified as “Jack,” to the Indian Pond Boy Scout Reservation, located in Piermont, N.H.
Losch, according to Jack, had groomed boys at the Tower School, as well as the Boy Scouts. He allegedly began with telling inappropriate stories, including ones that involved him taking pictures of naked boys.
During the trip to New Hampshire, Losch allegedly watched three of the four boys take off their bathing suits while swimming.
That night, Losch allegedly forced Jack to share a bed with him, before fondling and raping him.
Losch now resides in Livingston, Ala. While living there, he has worked at two churches. According to the Current, Losch is now the second priest accused of sexual assault against a young boy at St. Michael’s.
Franklin Huntress pled guilty to the assault of a 14-year-old boy in 2014, which also took place in New Hampshire during the 1980s. In 1994, he was also arrested and charged with sexual abuse of a child in London. Huntress retired as a priest in 1995, and currently resides in town.