No New Trial For Former East TN Priest

A former East Tennessee priest convicted of aggravated rape will not get a new trial. Yesterday, a motion for a new trial for William Casey was denied. William Casey was sentenced by a Sullivan County jury to 35 years in prison in back in 2011 in a case dating back to 1979 and 1980. At the original trial the victim testified that his then priest Father William Casey molested him more than 50 times over a period of five years when he was an altar boy at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Kingsport. The victim was 10 years old when the abuse started. Casey hired a new attorney in 2015 and attempted to get a new trial claiming that some evidence should have been excluded by the State of Appeals Court. However, the court of criminal appeals of Tennessee in Knoxville ruled that Casey failed to establish plain error by previous counsel and did not challenge the admission of evidence during previous court proceedings. Casey is serving his 35 year sentence at Northeast Correctional Facility in Mountain City. He will be eligible for parole in 2025 when he is 91.