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A former priest who was accused of getting a teenage girl pregnant should not be fired from his job as a sixth grade teacher on the basis of “hearsay” a New Jersey, state arbitrator ruled.
Joseph Michael DeShan was a priest at St. Augustine Cathedral in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1988 when he engaged in longterm sexual abuse with the then-14-year-old girl. Church records list DeShan’s birth year as 1959, which would make him 29 when the abuse started.
The girl worked in the church rectory, according to the Connecticut Post. She became pregnant less than two years into her relationship with the former priest when she was 16.
The district responded at that time with a three-week “administrative suspension” of DeShan, but after finding no more concerns then, it allowed DeShan back into the classroom, the arbitrator noted.
Because the district knew about and had cleared DeShan before new concerns about him arose last fall, the arbitrator found no merit in “alleged hearsay complaints” based on “pre-employment conduct” and ordered the district to reinstate the suspended teacher.
