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Priest Accused Of Secretly Recording Locker Room Likely To Plead Guilty In Child Porn Case

Richard James Kurtz
Richard James Kurtz (Booking Photo, 2011)

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - A Catholic priest charged with secretly recording high school hockey players in the locker room is moving toward a guilty plea in Detroit federal court.

A criminal "information" was filed this week by the U.S. attorney's office. It typically means a defendant is waiving indictment and has negotiated a plea deal.

The Rev. Richard Kurtz is charged with producing, possessing and transporting child pornography. The 69-year-old was a chemistry teacher years ago at the all-boys University of Detroit Jesuit High School.

The government says Kurtz went into the hockey locker room and secretly recorded video of players as they changed clothes in the late 1990s. Beyond that, the FBI also discovered that Kurtz transferred additional child pornographic material from his residence in Clarkston, Mich. to another home in Chicago.

Other priests found the locker room recordings among Kurtz's possessions in 2011 after he was charged with sexually assaulting a student on a trip to Colorado. That incident occurred 10 years earlier.

Kurtz was removed from public ministry soon after the initial allegation was received in 2001.

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