CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Father Joseph Kelleher, already accused of molesting a boy in Albemarle, is now being investigated in Charlotte for an incident that dates back to January 1981.
A man filed a police report with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police July 14, claiming Father Kelleher abused him when he was a boy at Our Lady of the Assumption in East Charlotte.
Kelleher served there from 1977 to 1986. The church and school was located on Shenandoah Avenue in Chantilly at the time. It has since moved to Shamrock Drive.
The report says that Kelleher fondled the boy, then 13. The address listed references the school, according to Catholic Diocese spokesman David Hains.
Kelleher turned himself into the Albemarle Police Department in early July to face charges of taking indecent liberties with a child. There, he's accused of molesting a 14-year-old boy at the Our Lady of the Annunciation Catholic Church in the 1970s.
Kelleher is technically retired, but he was most recently working as the chaplain at Bishop McGuiness Catholic High School in Winston-Salem. He was placed on administrative leave when the allegations surfaced.
Though Kelleher has not spoken publicly on the allegations, many of his former parishioners have rushed to his aid. Vigils in both Winston-Salem and Charlotte demanded "Justice for Father Kelleher."
"I was an altar boy at Our Lady of the Assumption in 1981," Todd Menzel, of Charlotte, told Newschannel 36 Wednesday night. "There was plenty of time that I spent with Father Kelleher alone, and he's a good guy...He's guilty of being friendly, but not guilty of being a pedophile [sic]. No, not Father Kelleher."
