(Court TV) — In a case that raises disturbing questions about the Catholic Church's handling of sexual misconduct in their ranks, a former Boston area priest faces up to 10 years in prison for allegedly fondling an 10-year-old boy in 1991.

Prosecutors claim John Geoghan, 66, reached into the boy's swimming trunks and touched the youngster's buttocks during diving practice at a Boys and Girls Club.

While this is the first criminal trial for Geoghan, more than 130 people have come forward in recent years accusing the disgraced clergyman of sexually abused them during his more than 30 years as a priest at six Massachusetts parishes.

Roman Catholic leaders in the Boston area have also come under fire after Geoghan was repeatedly reassigned to parishes where he was entrusted with the care of children — even though his predatory behavior was known to church officials at the highest levels for decades.

Fifty civil suits against Geoghan and the church and have already been settled, and 84 are still pending — not to mention two additional criminal cases Geoghan faces, including charges that he raped a 7-year-old boy.

The first trial he faces, however, will determine whether the former priest is guilty of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. The case is being tried in Middlesex County Superior Court in Cambridge, Mass., before Judge Sandra L. Hamlin.

The Incident

While assigned to St. Julia's parish in Weston, Mass., Geoghan spent time at the Boys and Girls Club in Waltham. The priest allegedly befriended many boys in Prospect Hill, a poor section of Waltham, and encouraged them to attend the club, telling their parents it was a good way to keep them off the streets and away from bad kids. Geoghan, however, never had an official affiliation with the club.

The alleged 10-year-old victim, now 20, was with his mother and sister practicing diving at the club one day in 1991. Prosecutors say Father Geoghan, who had no official connection to the club, approached and offered to help the boy improve his technique.

According to the boy, Geoghan reached into his swimming trunks and touched his buttocks. The boy immediately ran away and insisted that his mother take him home, prosecutors say. On the way home, the boy allegedly told his mother what happened and said he never wanted to go to the club again.

Defense lawyer Geoffrey Packard is quick to point out that it took seven years before the incident was reported, and says there is little evidence to support the boy's account.

Allegations Follow Geoghan

Following his ordination in 1962, allegations of abuse surfaced almost immediately. The archdiocese has settled claims on accusations that Geoghan abused children during his first assignment at Blessed Sacrament in Saugus, Mass. According to the Boston Globe report, church records reveal that in 1995 Geoghan admitting molesting four boys during his four years there.

Allegations that he molested young boys seemed to follow Geoghan as he was transferred from parish to parish. In the early 1970s, while at St. Paul's Church in Hingham, Mass., one mother claimed during a sworn deposition that three of her sons were raped anally and orally by Geoghan, who was supposedly taking them out for ice cream, helping them with baths and reading bedtime stories.

The mother, Joanne Mueller, says when she reported it to another parish priest, she was urged to keep quiet and told that the matter would be handled by church officials. The priest, Paul E. Miceli, later testified that he only remembered receiving a call from a woman who claimed Geoghan was spending too much time with her children.

Other victims have come forward claiming Geoghan sexually assaulted them during Geoghan's seven-year stint at St. Paul's. It was during that time in 1968 when Geoghan received in-patient treatment for sex abuse at the Seton Institute in Baltimore, according to a staff psychotherapist.

Geoghan was transferred in 1974 to St. Andrew's in Jamaica Plain, Mass., where he was in charge of overseeing altar boys and the Boy Scouts.

Maryetta Dussourd, the mother of seven boys, complained the pastor of a nearby parish, John E. Thomas, that Geoghan was molesting her sons during his frequent visits to her home.

An official told the Boston Globe that Thomas confronted Geoghan and that he admitted the truth of the allegations. The official said Thomas told Bishop Thomas V. Daily, who called Geoghan and told him to go home.

Dussourd claimed Thomas came to her several weeks later and told her that Geoghan had admitted abusing the boys. Thomas, Dussourd claimed, pleaded with her to keep the matter private.

A 1994 archdiocesan record said of the seven children: "Fr. Geoghan admits the activity but does not feel it serious or a pastoral problem."

In 1980, according to the Globe, Geoghan was placed on sick leave for a year and ordered by Cardinal Humberto Madeiros, archbishop of Boston, to undergo treatment for his compulsion.

In 1981, Geoghan was sent on to St. Brendan's in Dorchester, Mass. The parish's pastor, James H. Lane, reportedly told friends he was never warned of Geoghan's history of sex abuse.

In one of the criminal cases pending in Suffolk County, Mass., Geoghan is accused of repeatedly raping a Jamaica Plain boy over the course of a year in the early 1980s. The indictment in that case charges that Geoghan began by taking the boy out for ice cream and asking him explicit questions.

Within a month or two, the priest began taking him to the West Roxbury High School swimming pool with his mother's permission and would allegedly fondle him in the locker room or shower.

Soon Geoghan allegedly began taking the child to an apartment in the basement of the priest's family home in West Roxbury, where he allegedly raped the boy "six or seven times," telling him not to confide in his mother because she wouldn't understand, according to case documents.

Geoghan then moved on to visiting the child's home at bedtime, according to the indictment. There, he would pray with the boy in his bedroom, and when the child's mother was in another room, Geoghan allegedly would fondle him, until the mother became concerned and told him to either visit earlier in the evening or not at all.

In August 1982, the aunt of the seven Jamaica Plains victims wrote to Cardinal Madeiros, complaining that Geoghan, given another chance, was "still functioning," despite molesting her nephews.

"Regardless of what he says, or the doctor who treated him, I do not believe he is cured; his actions strongly suggest that he is not and there is no guarantee that persons with these obsessions are ever cured," the aunt, Margaret Gallant, wrote to the cardinal.

Madeiros died in 1983, and in 1984, Bernard F. Law was installed as archbishop of Boston. In September 1984, Law removed Geoghan from St. Brendan's amidst complaints that Geoghan had molested children in the parish. By November, Law approved Geoghan's transfer to St. Julia's, the Weston parish where Geoghan began his career.

Cardinal Law — who is named as a defendant in more than two dozen of the civil suits — has admitted in court documents and publicly that he was aware of the allegations against Geoghan when he approved his transfer. In the court filing, Law said he told Geoghan that he was being removed and was "in between assignments."

Cardinal Law's legal filing does not mention the allegations against Geoghan at St. Brendan's.

According to the Globe, one of Law's top subordinates expressed his concerns about the assignment in a letter less than a month after Geoghan was reassigned. On December 7, Bishop John M. D'arcy wrote to Law challenging the decision in light of Geoghan's "history of homosexual involvement with young boys."

In his first two years back at St. Julia's, Father Geoghan was in charge of altar boys, religious education for public school youngsters and a youth group.

The civil and criminal allegations against Geoghan in Middlesex and Suffolk Counties suggest that Geoghan abused at least 30 more boys after he returned to Weston.

In 1989, Geoghan went on sick leave after more complaints of sexual abuse. After six months, Geoghan returned to his duties.

It was not until 1993 that Geoghan was removed from parish duty and assigned to a home for retired priests. But even that decision did not stop Geoghan from continuing to seek out and molest children, according to the criminal and civil suits.

Finally, in 1998, the church removed Geoghan from the priesthood.

Cardinal Law has since issued a public apology to Geoghan's victims, calling his decision "tragically incorrect."

"These days are particularly painful for the victims of John Geoghan. My apology to them and their families, and particularly to those who were abused in assignments which I made, comes from a grieving heart," he said. "I am indeed profoundly sorry."

Pledging a new commitment to "zero tolerance" for sex abuse, the cardinal also issued a new policy, ordering priest and church officials to report sex abuse accusations to police, though state laws do not mandate it.