KENTUCKY PRIESTS WHO WERE CHARGED WITH OR CONVICTED OF SEX ABUSE
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Courier Journal, Monday, December 27, 1993

    November 1993, Dixon
    The Rev. Joseph Pilger, a retired Roman Catholic priest, pleaded
    innocent to 84 felony counts of sexually abusing four boys 25 years
    ago.  Pilger, 72, has a Jan. 10 pretrial conference scheduled.

    June 1993, Lexington
    Monsignor Leonard B. Nienaber, 86, was charged with sexually abusing
    24 children while he was pastor of Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary
    Catholic Church in Lexington.

    July 1993, Lexington
    The Rev. Carl C. Schaffer, a retired Catholic priest, apparently
    committed suicide a day after a detective questioned him about an
    abuse allegation.  Relatives and friends said that Schaffer's work
    was demanding and stressful and that he would have been greatly
    distressed by the allegation; the alleged acts apparently were said
    to have taken place years ago.  Schaffer had been a priest for 36
    years in Lexington and in Central and Northern Kentucky before his
    retirement in 1989.  He ran a center for troubled teen-age boys out
    of his Williamsburg home after his retirement.

    July 1993, Newport
    The Rev. Earl Bierman, a retired Catholic priest who pleaded guilty
    to sexaully abusing boys in Northern Kentucky, was sentenced to 20
    years in prison.  Campbell Circuit Judge William Wehr ordered
    Bierman, 61, of Erlanger to spend two to four of those years in a
    treatment program for sex offenders at the state reformatory in La
    Grange.  Bierman was said to have divulged detailed confessions of
    parish members as a way to initiate sexual encounters.

    November 1988, Louisville
    The Rev. Daniel C. Clark, a Catholic priest, was sentenced to serve
    three months in prison and remain on probation for 15 years for
    sexually abusing two boys he counseled at a local parish.  Clark had
    pleaded guilty to one count each of first-degree sexual abuse and
    second-degree sodomy.