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Defrocked priest gets two years for raping a boy with a crucifix

Defrocked priest gets two years for raping a boy with a crucifix

Anthony “Tony” Walsh, a former priest who made a name for himself as an Elvis impersonator, has had another two years tacked onto his sentence for twice sexually molesting a boy, one of potentially hundreds of abuse victims.

The first time, the boy was ten, and Walsh raped him in the parish rectory; another incident happened in a tunnel under Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Court documents show Walsh used a crucifix, which is a cross with a tiny statue of Jesus Christ molded onto it.

Walsh, 63, dared to plead not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to five counts of indecently assaulting the boy between January 1980 and December 1982. The boy was between 10 and 13 years old at the time, according to The Irish Times

Walsh committed the crimes before Ireland enacted stronger sentencing legislation in 1990, so the most a judge can impose is two years for each offense, according to the Irish Post.

But this was not his first conviction for this heinous crime. Walsh was sentenced to a total of 123 years for child abuse in December 2010, to be served concurrently over 17 and a half years. At the time it was the most severe sentence imposed on a child abuser.

And for good reason. According to the Murphy Commission Report into incidents of child sexual abuse by priests and other members of the Catholic church in Ireland, Walsh is “probably the most notorious child sexual abuser to have come to the attention of the Commission… His pattern of behaviour is such that it is likely that he has abused hundreds of children.”

The Post reports Walsh first gained fame throughout Britain and Ireland as an Elvis impersonator, performing in an “All Priests Show.”

Unless more years are added to his sentence, he will be free in May 2028, when he is 75.

 

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