Priest pleads guilty again to sexually abusing children

WAYNESVILLE, N.C. – A former North Carolina Episcopal priest who was previously imprisoned for child sexual abuse has pleaded guilty to multiple counts of sexually abusing children in a different case.

WLOS-TV reports 78-year-old Howard White Jr. pleaded guilty Monday to three counts of second-degree forcible rape, eight counts of second-degree forcible sex offence and seven counts of indecent liberties with a child. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

White was charged last year with abusing a boy and a girl in the 1980s while he worked at Grace Church in the Mountains in Waynesville. Those charges came while he was serving an 18-month sentence for pleading guilty in 2017 to sexually assaulting a student in Boston while serving as chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island.