CINCINNATI (OH)
The Cincinnati Post
By Kevin Eigelbach
Post staff reporter
A priest beaten to death in Lexington last week molested and tried to rape a boy in Northern Kentucky more than 40 years ago.
That’s according to the victim, Dan Willett, who was also a plaintiff in one of two sexual abuse lawsuits that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington agreed to settle in October for $5.2 million.
Lexington attorney Angela Ford, who represented Willett, said Father Joseph J. Pilger, a convicted sex offender, also served in some Northern Kentucky parishes in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He served at St. Patrick’s Church in Maysville in 1978, and then as a chaplain at St. Elizabeth Medical Center South in Edgewood. He also served in Newport, Ford said, but she didn’t know when.
Pilger was reassigned to Lexington in 1982, she said.
According to Lexington police, Pilger was found dead in his home Friday. The 78-year-old priest was apparently killed sometime between Wednesday and Friday, Lt. Kellie Edwards said. He appeared to have died from blunt force trauma.
