Priests with local ties cited on list of ’credibly-accused’ sex abusers

The Catholic Diocese of Charlotte on Monday released a formal list of clergy members who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse since 1972.

The list includes the names of two priests with ties to Gaston County – Donald Scales and Frederick George – whose alleged misconduct was previously publicized last February. The list does not include any new information about those two men or any other clergy members who spent time in Gaston County.

In all, the register cited 14 clergy members who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse in western North Carolina since the Charlotte diocese formed nearly 50 years ago. It also separately specified 23 clergy members who served the Charlotte diocese without incident but were accused of misconduct elsewhere, as well as six accused clergy who served western North Carolina before the local diocese's creation in 1972.

The majority of the incidents reported Monday were previously disclosed. Most of those also concern events that took place decades ago.

The diocese has said that all 14 locally accused clergy members were subsequently removed from the ministry or died before the allegations came to light.

The diocese defines the term "credibly accused" as referring to allegations that clergy members admitted to, were charged for by law enforcement, or were found to be credible by the diocese's volunteer-based Lay Review Board.

Charlotte-based U.S. Investigative Security Services, a private investigation firm, was hired by the diocese to review more than 1,600 personnel files that had been created since the diocese's inception. That resulted in four credible surfacing from the files dating from 2002, which was the time when United States bishops authored new policies for child sexual abuse, according to the diocese.

One person who was not on the list produced Monday, because the allegations against him involved adults and not children, is Monsignor Mauricio West.

West was most recently the vicar general and chancellor of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte. He stepped down from those roles in March after an initial claim of sexual misconduct against him – concerning an incident in the mid-1980s – was found to be credible by authorities with the diocese.

Belmont Abbey College announced in November that four more claims of sexual misconduct have been found "credible" against West. Those incidents reportedly took place in the 1980s and early 1990s, according to Bishop Peter Jugis of the Diocese of Charlotte and Belmont Abbey College Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari.

Check back at gastongazette.com for updates on this story.

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