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Dallas-area priest who admitted to sexually abusing as many as 50 children is arrested

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - 1/30/2020

Jan. 30--A 78-year-old priest who admitted to sexually abusing as many as 50 children during his time in the Catholic Diocese of Dallas was arrested in Missouri on Wednesday in connection to an allegation from the 1980s, according to court records and media reports.

Richard Thomas Brown was charged Tuesday with aggravated sexual assault of a child in connection with an alleged incident on July 5, 1989, Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV reported. It's unclear where Brown was serving as a priest at the time of the accusation.

Brown was one of five priests at the center of a Dallas police investigation last summer into alleged sexual misconduct within the diocese. The other priests who were investigated are Edmundo Paredes, Alejandro Buitrago, William Joseph Hughes Jr. and Jeremy Myers

Brown's the first to be arrested.

Officers searched the diocese in May 2019 as part of the investigation into the five priests, and the search warrant -- obtained by the Star-Telegram -- lays out the allegations against the men, including Brown.

The warrant says Brown is accused of using his role as a faith leader to become close with families and molest several young children. Additionally, leadership within the diocese was aware of the allegations against Brown and transferred him to different churches instead of reporting him, according to the warrant.

Brown was one of 31 Catholic clergymen named by the diocese in January 2019 as being credibly accused of sexual assault.

The allegations

In October 2018, a Dallas police detective in the Child Exploitation Unit heard from a woman who reported her niece had been sexually assaulted by Brown during the 1980s, the warrant states. The niece reportedly knew Brown from Irving'sHoly Family Catholic Church, where Brown took an interest in her and took her back to the church offices and his residence.

She said he would touch her sexually and force her to touch him sexually, according to the warrant. This happened over the course of several months, the victim told police, when she would attend church with her aunt.

After receiving this report, police reviewed Brown's file with the diocese and found he had admitted to "touching" two juveniles, the warrant states. One of these incidents occurred in Washington, D.C., in 1980 and the other occurred in Irving in 1987.

In both cases, Brown is accused of becoming close with a family outside of church and using that position to sexually abuse their children, according to the warrant.

With the Irving case, the mother didn't want to pursue charges but she didn't want Brown to continue serving as a priest at the church, the warrant states. Brown was then reportedly transferred to St. Phillip the Apostle, a parish that also had a school on its grounds.

Father John Bell of the diocese learned about incidents where Brown admitted to becoming aroused from juvenile females sitting on his lap, according to the warrant. It was recommended Brown receive therapy for the next several years as he remained in a controlled setting.

In 2002, the diocese received a letter from a family with four daughters in Illinois saying Brown had befriended them and sexually abused their girls, the warrant states. He was accused of inappropriate touching.

He also admitted to sexually abusing the daughter of a woman who worked in an office where he worked, according to the warrant. And he told the family about the allegations against him from the '80s and '90s and confessed to sexually abusing as many as 50 children in the diocese from 1980 through 1994, the warrant says.

When a Dallas detective interviewed Brown in New Mexico in May 2019, he admitted what he told the family in Illinois was true, according to the warrant. He also revealed the identity of a victim at St. Mark Parish, where he was a priest from 1989 to 1993.

At the time the search warrant was written, Brown had not been prosecuted for any of his allegations of sexual abuse against children.

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