Allentown Diocese priests and their crimes

The Morning Call
September 13, 2016

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-catholic-priests-charged-with-crimes-20160913-story.html

Bruno M. Tucci, former pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Nesquehoning, was removed from active ministry in 2002 amid sexual allegations, then charged in Maryland in 2013 with sexually abusing a boy in 1981.The disposition of that case is unknown.

Other priests with ties to the Diocese of Allentown who have been charged with crimes:

•The Rev. Thomas Bender, sentenced to seven years' probation in 1988 for molesting a teenage Pottsville boy in the 1980s.

•Monsignor Steven T. Forish, charged with soliciting boys for sex in south Bethlehem in 1996, acquitted in 1998. Charged with asking a 26-year-old man for "sexual favors" in Greensburg, Westmoreland County in August 2006. He was killed in a car crash in Carbon County in December 2006.

•The Rev. Edward R. Graff, a priest in the diocese for 31 years, was arrested in Texas in October 2002 on charges of molesting a teenage boy. Graff died at 73 in jail in November 2002.

•The Rev. James J. Mihalak, charged with indecent assault of a 17-year-old boy he picked up hitchhiking in the Tamaqua area in 1997. He was convicted in 1998 and received two years probation.

•Ronald Yarrosh, charged in 2004 with embezzling more than $23,000 from St. Ambrose Church in Schuylkill Haven and keeping child pornography on a church computer. Sentenced to 4-10 years in state prison.

•Bruno M. Tucci, former pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Nesquehoning, removed from active ministry in 2002 amid sexual allegations, then charged in Maryland in 2013 with sexually abusing a boy in 1981.

•Monsignor John Stephen Mraz, pastor at St. Ann in Emmaus, charged Sept. 13 with possession of child pornography.