OPP have arrested a former Cornwall-based priest, previously convicted of sex offences involving children, on new sex-related charges.
On March 12, Stormont Dundas and Glengarry OPP arrested 79-year-old Gilles Deslaurier, who now lives in Vercheres, Que.
He was charged with two counts of indecent assault of a male. The charges, the equivalent of current sexual-assault charges, date back to incidents allegedly involving a young boy that began in 1976.
Deslaurier was a Catholic priest who practised in the Cornwall and Ottawa regions. He was convicted of four counts of gross indecency involving boys in the ’80s and sentenced to two years of probation.
The 79-year-old was one of the priests investigated by the Cornwall Inquiry, a massive investigation completed in 2009 into allegations of institutional cover-ups of sexual assaults of children in the Cornwall area, including by the Catholic diocese.
Deslaurier is set to appear in an Alexandria, Ont., on April 3.