Fr. Gerard Trageser

Accused in 1958 of abuse beginning in 1956 of a girl, age 13. Criminally charged. Trial was kept private in a judge’s chambers. In exchange for no jail time, Archbishop Keough promised the judge that Trageser would never return to MD. Sent to Via Coeli in NM for treatment. The girl was sent to a “school of correction.” The girl’s mother had gone to a newspaper; Keough told Via Coeli’s director that “prolonged and extremely careful negotiations and the happy influence of a highly placed newspaper man prevented the entire scandal from becoming public knowledge.” Keough arranged for Trageser to be accepted into the Diocese of Salt Lake City. The Official Catholic Directory shows him beginning in 1959 as assigned to an Ogden UT parish. By 1969 he was a rural dean, with the title “Very Rev.”,  and pastor of a parish in Price UT. In 1970 he was administrator of a high school and grade school in Price. He is last shown in the 1971 Directory. Name appeared on Baltimore’s 9/2002 list of accused priests and religious (as “Gerald Tragesser.”) He was “released from the priesthood” in 1976. Died in 2013. Included in the 4/5/2023 MD Attorney General’s Report.