3 Accused of Molesting Altar Boys

Child molestation charges were filed Tuesday against two former priests and a seminarian, and arrest warrants were issued for all three, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said.

The charges against Lawrence Joseph Lovell, 55, and Thomas Marshall, 74, raise to eight the number of former priests charged in molestation cases by the district attorney’s office.

Lovell, a former youth pastor in charge of altar boys at San Gabriel Mission, is accused of lewd acts involving four boys under the age of 14 between 1980 and 1984. Removed from the ministry in 1986 after his conviction that year in another child molestation case, he has been working at a mental health center in New Mexico.

Marshall is charged with lewd acts involving two altar boys, 11 and 13, at St. Paul the Apostle Church in West Los Angeles. Prosecutors said the incidents occurred between 1959 and 1963, while Marshall was a priest at the church.

Marshall is retired and living in Toronto.

The former seminarian, Amado Pena, is accused of molesting two 14-year-old altar boys between 1980 and 1982 at Santa Teresita Church in Boyle Heights.

Pena, 51, was a seminary student at the church when the incidents allegedly occurred but left before becoming a priest, prosecutors said.

He is believed to be living in New Jersey, the district attorney’s office said.

Prosecutors said that, if convicted, Lovell faces up to 15 years in state prison, Marshall up to life imprisonment and Pena up to eight years.