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  Priest Ordered to Avoid Contact with Minors

Swampscott Reporter [Swampscott MA]
February 24, 2005

A Swampscott priest was ordered Feb. 17 to avoid unsupervised contact with minors after his arraignment on charges of accosting a 12-year-old girl and her mother in a Chelsea restaurant last month.

Chelsea District Court Judge Paul Buckley released the Rev. Jerome Gillespie, 55, on personal recognizance after his arraignment on charges of accosting, offering to pay for sex, enticing a child under 16 and two counts of assault.

The crimes allegedly occurred at Tommy Floramo's restaurant in Chelsea on Jan. 25. Since then, Gillespie has resigned from his post as pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Swampscott. A new pastor, the Rev. Clyde H. Chetwynde, assumed his duties at St. John's on Feb. 21.