N.Y. Franciscan priest charged with abuse of 2 boys in Bay State

A Franciscan priest with ties to Boston and Buzzards Bay was accused yesterday of raping two teenage boys from a Troy, N.Y., parish while on trips to Boston over a 12-year period.

Prosecutors said the assaults occurred between 1977 and 1989, but that Massachusetts' statute of limitations did not expire because the Rev. Frank Genevive returned to New York after each visit. That froze the legal clock in Massachusetts and allowed a Suffolk County grand jury to indict Genevive last month and prosecutors to formally charge him yesterday.

Genevive, 51, who lives in a Franciscan retreat in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., pleaded not guilty in Suffolk Superior Court to four counts of rape of a child and was released on his own recognizance by Clerk Magistrate Robin E. Vaughn.

The magistrate warned Genevive to stay away from minor children and the two alleged victims. If convicted, Genevive faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on each of the four counts.

Jake Wark , a spokesman for the Suffolk district attorney, declined to discuss whether Genevive's case could lead to other charges.

Genevive allegedly raped one youth three times and the other boy once, either in an unnamed rectory in the North End or in Genevive's car in downtown Boston, Wark said. One boy was between ages 13 and 16 when allegedly assaulted between 1977 and 1980. The second youth was 15 when he was assaulted sometime between 1987 and 1989, Wark said.

Genevive appeared in court wearing civilian clothes without a clerical collar, Wark said. His next court date is Sept. 7 for a pretrial conference.

A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, which oversees St. Anthony's of Padua in Troy, where Genevive worked when the alleged assaults took place, said that as a member of the Franciscan order, Genevive was not supervised by the diocese.

``It's unfortunate if indeed that occurred, but I don't know what else we can say," said spokesman Kenneth Goldfarb.

The Rev. Robert M. Campagna, spokesman for the Franciscan Province of the Immaculate Conception, which oversees Franciscans, said Genevive was removed from active ministry on June 2, 2002, and now lives in a setting ``where he has no access to minors." He did not say why Genevive was inactive.

Genevive taught at the former Christopher Columbus Catholic High School in the North End, which closed in 1990. A 1982 Globe article had Genevive teaching at Christopher Columbus and officiating over funeral services for one of four young victims of a Dorchester car crash.

Genevive was an assistant priest at St. Margaret's Parish in Buzzards Bay from 1998 to 2000, said a spokesman for the Diocese of Fall River.

One of the alleged victims in the criminal case against Genevive has come forward publicly. Mark Lyman, 42, of Stillwater, N.Y., has a $5 million lawsuit against the priest pending in Suffolk Superior Court. The Diocese of Albany had its name dismissed from the suit last month.

In that 2004 lawsuit, Lyman said his abuse occurred in Fall River and Lowell. Lyman also alleged in the lawsuit that Genevive took him to Christopher Columbus Catholic High School, where another church official abused him. That priest has not been charged.

``I decided to come forward about my abuse just after the scandal in Boston had erupted," Lyman said in a telephone interview yesterday. ``And in December 2004, I made my abuse and my abuser . . . public and have been outspoken since that time."

Lyman, who is a regional director for a network of victims of clergy abuse, said he was surprised Massachusetts was moving forward with charges against Genevive. Similar efforts to bring abuse charges against priests in New York met legislative resistance to suspend the statute of limitations.

``It is a significant victory," he said. ``For me, today is the day that I am no longer an alleged victim."

Mac Daniel can be reached at mdaniel@globe.com.