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Mass. priest pleads guilty to child pornography

Posted on: Tuesday, 27 September 2005, 15:13 CDT

BOSTON (Reuters) - A Massachusetts priest has pleaded guilty to downloading 650 images of child pornography on a computer and masquerading as a woman over the Internet to trick a teen-age boy into performing a sex act.

Rev. Stephen A. Fernandes, 55, also admitted possessing 114 computer videos of children engaged in sex acts during a court hearing on Monday in New Bedford, the state prosecutors' office said on Tuesday.

Bristol District Attorney Paul Walsh said Fernandes used an instant messaging service to pretend he was a 19-year-old woman in a teen-age chat room and trick a 16-year-old boy to film himself performing a sex act and e-mail him the video.

The pornography was discovered after Fernandes sent his computer to a repair shop, Walsh said.

Fernandes, pastor of a New Bedford church, has yet to be sentenced, but Walsh said he expected a lighter punishment than the 3-year state jail sentence sought by prosecutors because of the priest's past community service.

The case follows a scandal involving pedophile priests that erupted in Massachusetts in 2002. U.S. bishops were found to have moved priests known to have abused minors to new parishes instead of defrocking them or reporting them to authorities.

The Boston Archdiocese, squeezed by the cost of settlements with nearly 1,000 sex-abuse victims, has shut more than 60 churches since the scandal surfaced.

Source: REUTERS

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