Wempe was convicted and imprisoned for molesting an 11-year-old boy - the youngest brother of two of Wempe’s other alleged victims - while acting as a chaplain at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in the 1990s, a period within the statute of limitations.During Wempe’s highly publicized trial his actions at St. Sebastian Church in Santa Paula were the focus of trial testimony.In 1984, Wempe was assigned to St. Sebastian as Associate Pastor and befriended two brothers. In 1987 Wempe had the boys spend the night at the rectory, leading to a confrontation with now retired Father James Rothe.According to church records, Father Rothe wrote to the archdiocese’s vicar of the clergy, accusing Wempe of “boundary violations,” defined by the church as “indiscreet conduct with young boys without any evidence of molestation.”The complaint prompted moving Wempe to a New Mexico treatment center where he remained for six months. Cardinal Roger Mahony later reassigned him to Cedars-Sinai Hospital where the molestations he was convicted of had occurred.Wempe served at several Ventura County parishes from 1969 until his St. Sebastian assignment.Wempe’s trial was the first major prosecution stemming from the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s sex abuse scandal. Settlements and negotiations are ongoing with more than 560 men and women who charge that the archdiocese did not protect them from abusive priests.Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has been conducting the picketing of Wempe’s neighborhood since he was released from prison.
Wempe: Priest convicted of molestation quietly released, SNAP pickets
July 11, 2007
Santa Paula News
After a sensational trial that included testimony about the actions of a former priest during the time he was assigned to a Santa Paula church and an attempt to keep Michael Wempe behind bars, it turns out that he was quietly released from prison earlier this year.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesAfter a sensational trial that included testimony about the actions of a former priest during the time he was assigned to a Santa Paula church and an attempt to keep Michael Wempe behind bars, it turns out that he was quietly released from prison earlier this year.And residents of Seal Beach’s Leisure World don’t want Wempe - a former Roman Catholic priest - as a neighbor.Wempe, 67, paroled in February with little publicity, has been accused of molesting 13 victims and kept in the ministry despite warnings that he might be a sexual predator, prompting an apology from the Los Angeles diocese.In January Wempe was ordered to undergo 45 days of evaluation to determine whether or not he would be a threat to children if released from prison, where his three-year sentence had been reduced due to good behavior and time served while he was awaiting trial.State law required Wempe be held until the Department of Mental Health completed the evaluation...if Wempe had been determined to still be a risk, prosecutors could have asked a jury to declare him a sexually violent predator and have him involuntarily committed to a mental health facility.Wempe, who was sentenced in May 2006 and sent to North Kern County Prison, was quietly released at the end of the evaluation.Wempe confessed to molesting 13 boys in the 1970s and 1980s...he was charged with 42 counts of child molestation in 2003 and after a spending a year in jail awaiting his trial his case was dismissed due a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the statute of limitations.
