Keith Townsend, 52, reflected on the death of Ronald Paquin, a defrocked Catholic priest who died in custody at age 83 on 11 September. Paquin had faced criminal charges that Townsend pursued against him. Townsend said he hopes the death allows abuse survivors and their families to “keep pressing forward every single day,” noting that victims “live with a big burden in our hearts and on our backs.”
Paquin’s case figured prominently in the clergy sexual abuse scandal involving the Boston archdiocese. In 2002, Paquin pleaded guilty to sexually abusing an altar server between 1989 and 1992 while assigned to a parish in Massachusetts. His case was examined in investigative articles by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, which won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the broader abuse and cover-up scandal. The archdiocese’s archbishop resigned at the end of 2002, and the scandal prompted policy reforms across the U.S. Catholic Church.
After Paquin’s release from Massachusetts prison in 2015, Townsend came forward to report his own abuse by Paquin during camping trips to Maine between 1985 and 1989, when Townsend was between ages eight and thirteen. A Maine grand jury indicted Paquin in 2017 on charges related to Townsend and another individual. Following a jury trial in November 2018, Paquin was convicted regarding Townsend’s allegations but acquitted on charges related to the other person. Maine judge Wayne Douglas sentenced Paquin in May 2019 to 16 additional years in prison.
Townsend stated that while he understood various reactions to news of Paquin’s death, he chose to focus on his own recovery from substance abuse that followed the abuse. He credited his decision to pursue Paquin’s prosecution with protecting children and expressed satisfaction that Maine authorities “aggressively prosecute[d]” the case after Massachusetts released Paquin.
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented numerous abuse survivors, noted that the 2015 film Spotlight—which dramatized the Boston Globe’s investigation—helped survivors recognize they were not alone in their experiences. Townsend said he was grateful for increased awareness and concluded that imprisoning Paquin “saved lives.”
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