Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick charged with assault of a teen in the 1970s

Theodore McCarrick, a former Cardinal who was defrocked by the Vatican two years ago after a Vatican investigation confirmed he had sexually molested adults as well as children, has been charged with sexually assaulting a teenage boy during a wedding reception in the 1970s, court records show. Court documents show that McCarrick is charged with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or over.

McCarrick is the first cardinal in the U.S. to ever be criminally charged with a sexual crime against a minor, according to Mitchell Garabedian, a well-known lawyer for church sexual abuse victims who is representing the man alleging the abuse by McCarrick. "It takes an enormous amount of courage for a sexual abuse victim to report having been sexually abused to investigators and proceed through the criminal process," Garabedian said in an email, The Associated Press reports. "Let the facts be presented, the law applied, and a fair verdict rendered."