Hastings Priest Trial Winding Down

HASTINGS, Minn. (AP) — A former priest denies that he sexually abused an altar boy at a Hastings church almost 30 years ago.

Francis Hoefgen is on trial in Dakota County on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The 64-year-old Columbia Heights man testified Friday that he didn't remember his accuser, but never had sexual contact with him.

Hoefgen's accuser, who's now 36, testified Thursday that Hoefgen molested him when he was in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades in the parochial school at St. Boniface Church in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

In 2011, St. John's Abbey identified Hoefgen as one of 18 former and current monks who'd been subject to credible allegations of sex abuse.

The Star Tribune reports the jury will hear closing arguments and begin deliberations Tuesday.