Priest Arrested on Felony Charges

A 69-year-old Roman Catholic priest was arrested Friday on five felony counts of child molestation, making him the fourth Orange County cleric either jailed or charged with felonies in the last year.

Denis Lyons molested a teenage boy for three years starting in 1978, usually at St. John the Baptist Church in Costa Mesa, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Orange County district attorney’s office.

As corroborating evidence, authorities cited testimony from three other church members who said Lyons either molested them or touched them inappropriately as teenagers. Prosecutors used notes from church records as substantiation for the accusations. None of the victims is named in the complaint.

Lyons, who lives in Seal Beach, had been working at St. Edward Church in Dana Point until last year, when he was removed from the ministry -- two months short of retirement -- after the accusations surfaced.

He was released on bail from Costa Mesa City Jail after posting $100,000 bail.

One of Lyons’ alleged victims said he met with high-ranking church officials three times in 1995 to report the molestation.

According to court documents, the alleged victim said that in the final meeting, a church leader accused him of “trying to ruin a man’s life.” Authorities said notes from Lyons’ file corroborate that three meetings took place.

Officials in the Diocese of Orange disclosed a year ago, when the allegations surfaced publicly, that Lyons admitted in 1993 to “inappropriate behavior” with two men while serving as pastor of St. John the Baptist.

Then in 1994, the parents of two brothers complained to the diocese that Lyons had molested their sons, who were 14 and 16 at the time, about 1979.

Both times, church officials said, they sent Lyons for “extensive counseling,” including an 8-month stay at an out-of-state treatment center after the second set of allegations.

Lyons didn’t qualify under the diocese’s new “one-strike” policy for removing sex offenders because the allegations involving the two brothers couldn’t be proved, a church official said.