Courtroom affirms intercourse abuse conviction of ex-friar who labored at a Catholic college in Mississippi

JACKSON, Miss. — The Mississippi Courtroom of Appeals has affirmed the 2022 conviction of a former Franciscan friar within the Nineteen Nineties sexual abuse of a scholar at a Catholic college.

In a break up choice Tuesday, a majority of the courtroom discovered “no reversible error” within the conviction of Paul West, 63, who’s Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

Leflore County jurors in April 2022 discovered West responsible of 1 depend of sexual battery and one depend of gratification of lust. A decide sentenced him to 30 years on the primary depend and 15 years on the second depend, to be served on the identical time.

As first reported by The Related Press in 2019, La Jarvis Love and his cousin, Joshua Love, had accused West of quite a few cases of sexual abuse whereas they have been college students at St. Francis of Assisi Faculty in Greenwood. The AP normally doesn’t establish victims of sexual abuse, however the cousins agreed to be recognized.

West’s attorneys argued on enchantment that prosecutors did not show La Jarvis Love was youthful than 18 when the abuse occurred. A majority of the appeals courtroom judges wrote that West’s attorneys ought to have raised that problem in the course of the trial.

Appeals Courtroom Choose Latrice Westbrooks disagreed with the bulk.

“West’s charged offenses are deeply disturbing, however that doesn’t overshadow the truth that this Courtroom should make it possible for if an individual goes to be convicted — regardless of the offense — that each component is to be confirmed past an affordable doubt,” Westbrooks wrote.

La Jarvis Love and Joshua Love testified throughout West’s trial of repeated abuse by West starting after they have been within the fourth grade. They testified the abuse occurred each on the college and on journeys to New York and to Wisconsin, the place the Franciscan Friars of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary are primarily based. West was a member of the non secular order.

West left Mississippi within the late Nineteen Nineties. He returned to his house state of Wisconsin and left the Franciscan order. In September 2020, he was extradited from Wisconsin to Mississippi to face prison prices within the sexual abuse case.

St. Francis of Assisi Faculty primarily served Black and Hispanic households in Greenwood. A couple of month after West was convicted, the college introduced it was closing after greater than 70 years. The choice got here after the intercourse abuse scandal, declining enrollment and a steep lower in donations.