Tennessee priest pleads guilty in North Carolina abuse case

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By Clarke Morrison CMorrison@CITIZEN-TIMES.com

MARION, N.C. — Three months after a Jeffersonville, Ind., man reported him to police, a retired Catholic priest from Tennessee pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge related to child molestation dating from the 1970s.

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Bill Casey, 77, received a suspended jail sentence in McDowell County District Court on one count of crime against nature. He also was placed on two years of supervised probation, required to comply with the requirements of a sex offender control program and ordered not to associate with children unless in the company of a responsible adult.

McDowell County deputies arrested Casey in April after Warren Tucker of Jeffersonville, Ind., came forward with allegations that he was sexually abused for five years starting in 1975 when he was a fifth-grader at St. Dominic’s Church in Kingsport, Tenn.

Tucker, who sat one table over as Casey admitted to the crime, said the conviction was bittersweet because his molester will serve no time.

“I looked over at him and I thought to myself: what a broken down, tired old man,” he said after the court hearing. “You hate to see a convicted pedophile plead guilty to a felony and then walk out.”

But Tucker, of Jeffersonville, Ind., praised the work of District Attorney Brad Greenway, saying he did the best he could with what he had to work with.

Casey was the parish pastor in Kingsport from 1976 to 1987. He spent time in six other parishes in east Tennessee in his 30-year career as an active priest before retiring in 1999, then began filling in for vacationing priests.

The Knoxville Diocese suspended Casey after church officials learned of Tucker’s allegations.

Bishop Richard Stika said Casey admitted to abusing the boy.

Casey declined to comment Wednesday as he left the courtroom. But his attorney, David Belser, said Casey was deeply remorseful.

“He came to realize many years ago the wrongness of his deeds,” Belser said. “In a heartfelt way, he asks Mr. Tucker for his forgiveness for any pain and suffering he’s caused him. He hopes he will begin to find healing and wholeness.”

Tucker said Casey molested him until he was about 15 years old, including once at a lodge on an overnight trip to the community of Little Switzerland in McDowell County, N.C., to go gem mining.

“It only happened once in McDowell,” he said. “It happened dozens and dozens and dozens of times in Tennessee.

“Clergy sex abuse needs to stop. I’ll dedicate the rest of my life to that,” he said.

Tucker said he filed a criminal complaint in North Carolina because it doesn’t have a statute of limitations on felonies but Tennessee does.

Tucker, said he still hopes Casey will go to prison. He has filed complaints against the priest with law enforcement in Scott County, Va., and Sullivan and Greene counties in Tennessee.

http://www.courier-journal.com/articl...h-Carolina