Canada: defrocked Edmundston priest sentenced to seven and a half years for abusing altar boys
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
Roman Catholic priest, Diocese of Edmundston
Organization
Diocese of Edmundston
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
Altar boys serving directly under a parish priest's liturgical and pastoral authority, the paradigmatic clerical-access relationship.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
- Ritual, oath, or initiation
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2015-01-01 · guilty plea and sentencing
Edmundston Provincial Court. Rino Deschênes pleaded guilty to charges including indecency and sodomy against four youths who served as altar boys under him in the 1960s while he was a priest in Edmundston. Judge Brigitte Volpe of Edmundston Provincial Court sentenced him to seven and a half years' imprisonment in 2015. He was subsequently defrocked.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- clerical authority over altar boys serving under him in the 1960s
- defrocking followed the conviction, confirming loss of clerical status only after the fact
Cited record
Sources
- press news report McKiggan Hebert Lawyers, 'Rino Deschenes Charged with Sexual Abuse.'
Reports the guilty plea, sentence, altar-boy victim role, and defrocking.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.apmlawyers.com/blog/rino-deschenes-edmundston-diocese/ Corpus classification: press; evidentiary role: news-report. SHA-256 f906cc0cdfde93041a6f421c5fb8140e540781b3993a61b264ae519be5b4c780
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts
- 2018 · Harrisburg, PA, USA PA grand jury: 301 priests, 1,000+ child victims documented ('weaponized' faith)
- 2009 · Dublin, Ireland Ryan Commission: abuse 'endemic' in Catholic-run institutions (state inquiry)
- 2021 · Paris, France CIASE/Sauvé Report: est. 216,000 abused by French clergy since 1950
- 2019 · Vatican City McCarrick: ex-cardinal found guilty by Vatican canonical process, laicized
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- 2001 · London, UK Victoria Climbié: murder convictions; possession belief; Laming Inquiry followed
- 2012 · London, UK Kristy Bamu: kindoki 'deliverance' murder convictions (30/25-yr minimums)