From: bcsabha.kal...@gmail.com To:
Indian priest pleads guilty to sexual assault in US The maximum penalty for fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct is 10 years imprisonment. Jeyapaul will be sentenced on June 15. Posted on May 25, 2015, 10:42 AM Minnesota: An Indian Catholic priest, Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, pleaded guilty Friday to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl while serving in the Diocese of Crookston. The guilty plea comes nearly 10 years after Rev. Jeyapaul, 60, assaulted the girl at his home. Jeyapaul was extradited from India to the U.S. in November to face criminal charges brought in two different cases both alleging sexual abuse of underage female parishioners. He had left the U.S. in September 2005 before criminal charges were filed against him and was first arrested in March 2012 in India. Jeyapaul pleaded guilty Friday to fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, a felony, in one of the two cases. The other case, in which he is charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, is still pending. The charge to which Jeyapaul pleaded guilty Friday was filed after the girl told investigators Jeyapaul had forced her to touch him and pulled her on top of him while kissing her on her 16th birthday in 2005. The girl told investigators she had first met Jeyapaul on a bus ride to a conference when she was 15 years old, when he touched her thigh, court records say. She told investigators that a few weeks later, when she was still 15, Jeyapaul began calling her at her home and telling her he would marry her if he were younger. Forum News Service is not identifying the victim, a common practice with victims of sexual assault. The maximum penalty for fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct is 10 years imprisonment. Jeyapaul will be sentenced on June 15. In the other case, Jeyapaul faces more serious charges, punishable by up to 30 years imprisonment per charge. Jeyapaul was an administrator of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Greenbush, as well as St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Middle River, Minn., and St. Edward's Catholic Church in Karlstad, Minn., from the fall 2004 to the fall 2005. Source: Duluth news tribune