Key facts
- Keith Townsend, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by Ronald Paquin, hopes the priest's death brings closure to victims.
- Ronald Paquin, a defrocked Boston Catholic priest, died in prison on September 11 at age 83.
- Paquin was imprisoned in 2019 after being convicted of abusing Townsend, who was an altar server at St John the Baptist church.
- Townsend was abused by Paquin on camping trips in Maine between 1985 and 1989, when Townsend was between eight and 13 years old.
- Paquin was sentenced to 16 years in prison in May 2019.
- The abuse by Paquin was first exposed in investigative articles by the Boston Globe's Spotlight team.
Keith Townsend, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a defrocked Boston Catholic priest, expressed hope that the clergyman's recent death in prison will help other victims find closure and move forward. Ronald Paquin, who was imprisoned in 2019 for abusing altar servers and died on September 11 at age 83, was a central figure in the clergy sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic archdiocese of Boston.
Townsend, who was an altar server at St John the Baptist church in Haverhill, Massachusetts, where Paquin served, reported being abused by Paquin on camping trips in Maine between 1985 and 1989, when Townsend was between eight and 13 years old. Paquin had previously pleaded guilty in Massachusetts to abusing an altar server from 1989 to 1992 and was stripped of his clerical status. He was freed in 2015, which motivated Townsend to come forward.
A Maine grand jury indicted Paquin in 2017 on new charges. He was found guilty of abusing Townsend in November 2018 and sentenced to 16 more years in prison in May 2019. Paquin died at the Mountain View correctional facility in Charleston, Maine.
Townsend reflected on his own struggles with substance abuse addiction, which he attributed to Paquin's abuse, and his subsequent recovery. He stated that his aim in pursuing Paquin's re-imprisonment was to protect children, not out of personal vengeance. The abuse and cover-up scandal involving Paquin and other clerics was famously depicted in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight.