Priest charged with sex crime against boy

A Catholic priest from Duplin County arrested for crimes involving a boy is out of the Brunswick County Jail.

47-year-old Edgar Sepulveda is charged with second-degree sexual offense and sexual battery.

The Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office says the charges stem from an incident in Duplin County in May of last year.

In September, the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh was notified of the alleged sexual assualt and contacted the District attorney’s conference. According to the Diocese, Father Sepulveda was suspended once it learned of the allegations.

Sepulveda is a mission priest who came to Brunswick County in early summer to speak to youth at Saint Brendan’s in Shallotte.

A member of the parish volunteered to give Sepulveda a place to stay, and according to detectives, that’s when the second allegation of sexual abuse happened.

Sepulveda denies the claim.