Court Appearance Postponed for Priest

Albany Times Union
May 13, 2014

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Court-appearance-postponed-for-priest-5474208.php

A priest's expected appearance in town court has been postponed until next month, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The Rev. James Michael Taylor was originally scheduled to be in court on Wednesday but asked that the case be adjourned until June 11.

Taylor was arrested in April. A 30-year-old priest in the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese, Taylor was accused of abusing his position of trust to carry on an inappropriate -- and criminal -- seven-month relationship with a girl half his age, law enforcement officials said after his arrest.

Taylor, an associate pastor at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Niskayuna, engaged in physical contact and shared phone calls, text messages and pictures with a 15-year-old girl he met a few years ago while serving as a deacon and youth minister at Corpus Christi Church in Clifton Park, police said.

The unlawful contact occurred in Saratoga County from October 2013 until recently, according to county Sheriff Michael Zurlo. The girl lived in Clifton Park. Police charged Taylor, who was raised in Georgia and converted to Catholicism as a young man, with endangering the welfare of a minor, a misdemeanor.