Former US Cardinal McCarrick not competent to face sex abuse trial, judge says

Source: Reuters

Former US Cardinal McCarrick not competent to face sex abuse trial, judge says

Nate Raymond
Updated Wed, August 30, 2023 at 4:45 PM EDT·2 min read

DEDHAM, Massachusetts (Reuters) -A Massachusetts judge on Wednesday dismissed a criminal case charging former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick with molesting a 16-year-old boy in 1974, saying the 93-year-old was not competent to stand trial after psychological experts found he had dementia.

McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019, became the only current or former U.S. Catholic cardinal to ever face child sex abuse charges when prosecutors in Massachusetts first charged him in 2021.

He was charged in April in a separate, ongoing criminal sexual assault case in Wisconsin involving the same alleged victim, who prosecutors said was fondled by McCarrick when he was 18 years old while staying as a guest at a cabin in 1977.

Prosecutors in Dedham, Massachusetts, said that three years earlier, during a family wedding reception at Wellesley College, McCarrick groped the boy as they walked around campus before taking him into a small closet-like room and fondling him.

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