The Rev. Stephen Valenta, a Franciscan friar indicted last April on a sexual assault charge and scheduled to go on trial Monday before 20th District Judge Ed Magre, pleaded no contest and will serve five years unadjudicated probation cloistered in a friary.
Valenta, 86, had pleaded innocent and was scheduled to go on trial before the judge, but proceedings were delayed as his attorneys met with prosecutor Kerry Spears to work out details of a plea agreement.
Valenta was indicted April 16, 2009, by a Milam County grand jury on third-degree felony sexual assault in connection with an incident May 21, 2008, in which a visiting priest at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Rockdale forced a Rockdale woman to perform oral sex in the church rectory.
Over the span of four years, 50-year-old Fidda Mohammad Naasan and her family have been violently...
A Maryland truck driver suffered an “eye stroke” that left him blind, first in one eye...
When we talk about our inability to pay attention, to concentrate, we often mean and blame...
