MINNESOTA
The Mankato Free Press
A Blue Earth priest charged with sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl has been put on leave.
The Rev. Leo Charles Koppala will not be permitted to exercise his public ministry or live on the property of the Diocese of Winona pending the outcome of the legal process, according to the diocese.
The diocese also said in its news release that it has received no other allegations of this nature involving Koppala, a priest of the Nellore Diocese in South India. He is on loan from the Indian diocese and has been in the Winona diocese for fewer than five years.
Koppala, 47, had previously worked at a different church in the diocese, though a diocese spokesman was out of the office and said he wasn’t sure where it was.
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