Fr. Francis X. Nelson
Priest of the Diocese of Kottar, India. Charged in 2002 with sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl in 1999, while working in the Diocese of Brooklyn. The arrest came after the District Attorney obtained Brooklyn church files which revealed allegations that, during a visit to her home, Nelson took the girl onto his lap, touched her breasts under her bra, and pushed his penis into her buttocks through her clothing; her terminally ill grandmother sat nearby in a wheelchair. The girl’s parents reported the abuse. Nelson was removed, then accepted into the NY archdiocese after Kottar Bishop Tharmaraj wrote a letter of recommendation. In 2002 the Archdiocese said it had not been informed of the allegation. Nelson was convicted and sentenced in 2003 to four months in jail. He returned to India after his release where, in 2010, he was working in the Bishop’s office.
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