(Reuters) – Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenager during a wedding reception at Wellesley College in Massachusetts in 1974, the Boston Globe reported on Thursday.
Court records online showed a criminal complaint dated on Wednesday was filed in Dedham, Massachusetts, charging McCarrick with indecent assault and battery on a person 14 years or older.
McCarrick, 91, was expelled from the priesthood in 2019 after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual abuse.
A lengthy Vatican report released in November 2020 found that McCarrick had risen through the church’s ranks despite persistent rumors of sexual misconduct, including a 2000 promotion from Pope John Paul II.
McCarrick’s attorney, Barry Coburn, told Reuters: “We look forward to addressing the case in the courtroom.”
The victim’s lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, said the case is the first time that a U.S. cardinal has been criminally charged with a sexual crime against a minor.
“It takes an enormous amount of courage for a sexual abuse victim to report having been sexually abused to investigators and proceed through the criminal process,” he said in an email.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey; editing by Diane Craft and Sonya Hepinstall)
