BRANDENBURG, Ky. (AP) - The Latest on a Louisville priest being tried on sexual abuse charges (all times local):
7 p.m.
A jury has recommended a seven-year sentence for a Louisville priest convicted of sexual abuse.
The Meade County jury earlier Tuesday found the Rev. Joseph Hemmerle guilty of one count of indecent or immoral practices with a child under 15 at his Catholic summer camp in the 1970s. He was found not guilty of a second count and faced up to 10 years in prison.
The 74-year-old priest testified Tuesday that he would occasionally apply calamine lotion to the genitals of child campers, with their permission. But he testified that he never abused the alleged victim, Michael Norris.
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5:30 p.m.
A Louisville priest has been convicted of one count of sexual abuse and found not guilty of a second count.
The Rev. Joseph Hemmerle was convicted Tuesday of indecent or immoral practices with a child under 15 at his Catholic summer camp in the 1970s.
The 74-year-old priest testified Tuesday during a trial in Meade County that he would occasionally apply calamine lotion to the genitals of child campers, with their permission. But he testified that he never abused the alleged victim, Michael Norris.
Jurors deliberated for two hours before delivering the verdicts, then began considering a sentence. Hemmerle faces up to 10 years in prison.
Norris said when he was 10 years old, Hemmerle stood him on a stool with no clothes and sexually abused him in Hemmerle’s personal cabin.
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1:15 p.m.
A Louisville priest accused of sexually abusing a man who attended a Catholic summer camp in the 1970s says he did not abuse the man, who was 10 at the time.
The Rev. Joseph Hemmerle is testifying Tuesday in Meade County, which was the site of a summer camp he ran for three decades beginning in the 1970s. Michael Norris, a camper at Camp Tall Trees in 1973, says Hemmerle stood him on a stool with no clothes and sexually abused him in Hemmerle’s room. Norris went to the room for poison ivy treatment.
The 74-year-old Hemmerle says he doesn’t remember Norris at the camp, but “there’s no doubt in my mind” that Norris was not abused.
Hemmerle is facing two counts of a sexual abuse-related charge. The church placed him on administrative leave in 2014.
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