Costa Mesa priest to be tried in molestation case
The trial of a former Costa Mesa priest accused of molesting a 7-year-old parishioner is scheduled to begin Monday.
Denis Lyons, 77, is charged with four felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old, according to court records.
Lyons is accused of molesting a boy in the church rectory and sacristy at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Costa Mesa, according to archived reports from the Costa Mesa Police Department and Orange County district attorney’s office.
Lyons, of Seal Beach, was arrested July 20, 2009, while playing cards at a community center.
Police say he molested a boy four times while the boy was in the second and third grade at the parish school beginning in 1992.
In 2003, Lyons was charged with molesting a child under 14 between 1978 and 1981. That case was dismissed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a California law eliminating the statute of limitations in sex cases could not be applied retroactively.
Lyons has pleaded not guilty to all four counts. If convicted, he faces up to 14 years in prison.
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