Priest to Face Further Charges

Ventura County prosecutors filed additional criminal charges Tuesday against a retired Catholic priest after two more men came forward with allegations that they were molested as boys three decades ago.

Father Carl Sutphin, 70, now faces 14 counts of child molestation involving six boys during the late 1960s and 1970s.

During a court appearance Tuesday, Sutphin’s attorney, James Farley, told a judge he will seek a complete dismissal of charges by challenging a controversial state law that allows prosecutors to file sex-abuse counts years after an alleged crime has occurred.

Sutphin was arrested April 4 at his 96-year-old mother’s home in Ventura on suspicion of molesting four boys.

Released on $200,000 bail, Sutphin appeared in Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday to answer those charges, but the matter was postponed after prosecutors presented him with a second criminal complaint involving two more victims.

Judge James Cloninger consolidated the cases and set arraignment for May 5.

Prosecutors sought a bail increase, but the request was denied.

Sutphin is now accused of molesting six boys, ages 7 to 12, between 1968 and 1978 while serving as an associate pastor at St. Mary Magdalen Church in Camarillo and as a chaplain at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard.

Farley and his associate, Kay Duffy, are representing Sutphin for free. The lawyer said Tuesday that Sutphin is penniless, in poor health and caring for his elderly mother.

He declined to identify the friend who secured Sutphin’s release from County Jail, but said the clergy were not involved in posting bail.

Sutphin most recently worked at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral in downtown Los Angeles and at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels while it was under construction.