Ex-Priest Indicted On Molestation Charges In South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A former Catholic priest who has already served time in prison for sexually abusing two boys in Maryland has been indicted in South Carolina on nine charges for molesting two boys nearly 40 years ago, a prosecutor said Monday.

Investigators have been looking into allegations against Wayland Brown for 14 months since the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia, paid $4.5 million to settle a lawsuit by man who said when he was in middle school, Brown sexually abused him and threatened eternal condemnation for him and his family if he reported it, authorities said.

Brown molested the boys while they attended St. James Catholic School in Savannah in the late 1970s and 1980s, prosecutor Duffie Stone said in a news release. The assaults occurred outside the school, according to the indictments. Brown was ordained in 1977.

Brown was arrested in Baltimore after being charged last week with three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and six counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, Stone said. If convicted of all the charges, the 74-year-old former priest faces up to 210 years in prison.

Court records didn't indicate if Brown had a lawyer.

Stone said authorities think there may be other victims who haven't come forward and asked them to call investigators.

Pope John Paul II dismissed Brown from the priesthood in 2004 after he pleaded guilty a year before to abusing two brothers in the 1970s, while Brown was still a seminary student. Brown served five years of a ten-year sentence.

At his sentencing, Brown apologized to his victims.

"There is no excuse for what I did, there cannot be," Brown said. "I hated myself for what I did."

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