Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, USA · 2018

Pennsylvania: priest John Sweeney — first conviction from the 2018 grand jury report

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Catholic priest, Diocese of Greensburg

Organization

Diocese of Greensburg

Spiritual nexus

The victim was delivered into Sweeney's private custody through a school-discipline referral that relied on his clerical authority over the parish school.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2018-12-21 · guilty plea (reduced to misdemeanor) and sentencing

    Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania, USA. John Thomas Sweeney pleaded guilty on July 31, 2018 to indecent assault (reduced to a misdemeanor) for abusing a 10-year-old boy at St. Margaret Mary Catholic School during the 1991-92 school year, after the boy was sent to him for discipline. On December 21, 1918 [sic 2018] he was sentenced to 11 months to 5 years in state prison with 10-year sex-offender registration — the first conviction produced by the 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • school-discipline referral used as pretext for private access to a 10-year-old

Primary record

Sources

official attorney general press release plea announcement Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, 'CASE UPDATE: Catholic priest pleads guilty to sexually assaulting 10-year-old boy in Greensburg Diocese' (2018).

Official AG case update confirming Sweeney's guilty plea and the underlying grand-jury-report origin of the charge.

regional catholic press sentencing report 'Pennsylvania priest sent to prison after guilty plea in abuse case,' CatholicPhilly (Jan. 2019).

Contemporaneous reporting confirming Sweeney's sentence of 11 months to 5 years and registration requirement.

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