Retired priest charged with child sex abuse

[left-of-center2012]

A retired priest who once oversaw the safety of children in a Catholic diocese in the Washington suburbs
has been charged with sexually assaulting a child, Virginia’s attorney general announced Tuesday.

A Fairfax County, Va, grand jury indicted Terry Specht, 68, of Donegal, Pennsylvania, last week on two felony counts related to sexual abuse of a child under 13, The Washington Post reported. According to the indictment, the assault took place in 2000, when Specht was chaplain and assistant principal at St. Paul VI Catholic High School.

Specht was the director of the Arlington Diocese Office of Child Protection and Safety between 2004 and 2011. In this role, he was responsible for policy and instruction but didn’t oversee sexual abuse investigations or assign priests to churches, Catholic Diocese of Arlington spokesperson Amber Roseboom said.

In 2012, Specht was
accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy when he was a parochial vicar at St. Mary of Sorrows Church in Fairfax.
He was never charged (until now).
The Diocese review board found the allegation to be inconclusive, but he was placed on administrative leave.

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2021/12/retired-priest-who-now-lives-in-pa-charged-with-child-sex-abuse.html