Wayland Brown, a Catholic priest and convicted sexual predator, has been indicted in South Carolina on nine counts of sexual battery involving two children under the age of fourteen. At the time of his crimes, Brown was pastor of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Hardeeville, South Carolina.
The Savannah Morning News reports:
Former Savannah Roman Catholic priest – and convicted child sex offender — Wayland Yoder Brown has been indicted in Jasper County, S.C., on nine counts of criminal misconduct with a minor – sexual battery — involving two male victims, South Carolina Fourteenth Circuit Solicitor Duffie Stone III announced today.
Brown, 74, is in custody in Maryland, Stone said. He will be extradited to South Carolina. It’s not known how long that process will take.
The felony indictments, returned Thursday in the Court of General Sessions, charge Brown with sexual battery in several locations, including St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Hardeeville, S.C., the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge and the intersection of Stiney and Morgan roads in Hardeeville in the area surrounded by railroad tracks and depot area.
Victims in the cases ranged in age of under 11 to under 14. One victim was in the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades at the time of the alleged abuses. The other victim was in the seventh grade at the time. The crimes alleged in the indictments occurred in Jasper County between 1978 and 1988.
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Stone said the charges carry a sentence of 25 years to life for criminal sexual conduct in the first degree and 20 years each for the second-degree charges.
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Brown was ordained in the Diocese of Savannah in July 1977 and served as associate pastor at St. James Catholic Church and school in the mid-1970s. The Vatican dismissed Brown from the priesthood in December 2004.
He is a convicted sex offender and is registered in Maryland as a sex offender.
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In June 2002 he was arrested in Savannah on charges of child abuse and perverted practice from Maryland stemming from misconduct in the 1970’s when Brown was a seminarian in Washington, D.C.
Brown pleaded guilty in November 1977 to charges of child abuse and battery for performing sexual acts on a teenage boy and his younger brother, ages 13 and 12, between 1974-1977 in Gaithersburg, Md.
He was sentenced to 10 years in a Maryland prison in November 2002, but was released after serving five years because of credits he earned for good behavior. He was required to register as a sex offender in Maryland.
In 2016, the Savannah diocese reached a $4.5 million settlement through mediation of a lawsuit against Brown and two bishops stemming from sexual abuse of a minor – more than 30 years ago.
That suit, filed by Savannah attorney Mark Tate in the Court of Common Pleas in Jasper County, S.C., alleged that Brown took the plaintiff to Jasper County and had “multiple sexual encounters” with him between August 1987 and May 1988.
The plaintiff, Christopher Templeton of Savannah, was a 13-year-old student at St. James Catholic School in Savannah at the time.
That settlement resolves claims against former Bishop Raymond Lessard and current Bishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, but not as to Brown.
In October 2009, the Savannah diocese agreed to pay $4.24 million to another victim – former parishioner Alan Ranta Jr., who at the time of the acts was a St. James Catholic School student. He alleged Brown molested him between 1978 and 1983, starting when he was 10 years old.
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https://www.wjcl.com/article/ex-priest-tied-to-raping-boys-in-savannah-lowcountry-dies-months-into-imprisonment/28186873#
This priest was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in South Carolina for sexual battery but he did not live very long afterwards. He died in June of 2019.