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  Ex-Priest Indicted on Rape Charge

By Tamara Race
Patriot Ledger
October 9, 2002

PLYMOUTH - A former Rochester Catholic priest

living at Priscilla Beach was indicted yesterday for rape of a child.

The Rev. John P. Lyons, 74, was arrested last month and arraigned on the rape charge in Wareham District Court. He was released after posting $7,500 cash bail.

Authorities allege that the Rev. Lyons began raping an 8-year-old boy in 1987 at St. Rose of Lima Church in Rochester. The sexual attacks continued on diverse dates for the next two years, according to the indictment.

The Archdiocese of Boston removed the Rev. Lyons from St. Rose's in May when two men filed a lawsuit alleging that he had sexually abused them in the 1970s and 1980s at a Brighton church where they had served as altar boys.

The Plymouth County district attorney's office began investigating the Rev. Lyons in August after receiving a call on a sexual-abuse hotline from the now-23-year-old man who alleges that he was raped in Rochester.

He is scheduled to be arraigned in Brockton Superior Court next Wednesday.

 
 

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