Former Purcellville Priest Sentenced to Prison for Child Sexual Abuse

BY NORMAN K. STYER nstyer@loudounnow.com

Rejecting a probation-only recommendation derived from the commonwealth’s sentencing guidelines, Circuit Court Judge James E. Plowman today sentenced a former priest at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Purcellville to eight years in prison for the 1985 sexual assault of a teen at his parish.

Scott Asalone, 66, was 29 years old when he was a Capuchin friar working at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church and befriended the 14-year-old victim. That their relationship included sexual conduct came to light in 1992, when the victim wrote a letter to Asalone detailing the impact that abuse had on his life, including substance abuse and a lasting distrust of others.

After that letter, Asalone was transferred from the parish and the victim was awarded a civil settlement. According to a 2019 report of past sexual abuse allegations released by the Diocese of Arlington, Asalone was ordained in 1983, removed from public ministry in 1993 and dismissed from his religious order in 2007.

In 2018, Virginia State Police inves- tigators contacted the victim as part of a broader investigation by the State Police and the Virginia Attorney General’s Office into allegations of criminal sexual abuse of children in Virginia’s Catholic dioceses, and whether leadership in the dioceses may have covered up or abetted such

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