A former priest allowed to remain in ministry after telling Cardinal Roger M. Mahony that he had molested children was arrested Thursday on suspicion of committing lewd acts with a child in the 1990s, with deputies taking him into custody as he disembarked from a plane at Los Angeles International Airport.
The arrest caps a four-year effort by prosecutors to build a case against Michael Stephen Baker, who authorities said ranks among the most prolific alleged abusers in the church. More than 20 people told the Los Angeles Archdiocese that Baker had molested them during his 26 years as a priest.
Mahony has said that Baker's case is one "that troubles me the most."
Baker told Mahony in 1986 that he had molested children, according to the archdiocese and Baker. Mahony did not alert police, but sent Baker for treatment, after which the priest was assigned to a series of nine other parishes.
Baker was about to stand trial in 2003 on different molestation charges. But his case and those of nearly a dozen accused priests were thrown out after the U.S. Supreme Court barred the revival of decades-old childhood sexual abuse prosecutions.
Thursday's arrest involves a molestation case that authorities say took place within the statute of limitations. It involves allegations that Baker sexually assaulted a young boy, now 27, in the rectory of a church somewhere in Los Angeles County.
The alleged victim and his brother have received a $1.3-million settlement from the archdiocese, its insurers and Baker, who contributed $500,000.
Baker was taken into custody as he returned from a trip to Thailand and Nepal. At the same time, deputies served search warrants at his Huntington Beach and La Mirada residences.
Sources familiar with the case said that for the last few months, investigators have kept tabs on the former priest's whereabouts, fearing that he might flee the jurisdiction before the case is ready for charging.
"We'd completed our investigation and we knew it was a safe and effective place to make the arrest," Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Dan Scott said.
The district's attorney's office said it expected to file formal charges Monday. Baker was being held in jail Thursday in lieu of $1-million bail.
In their civil suit, the brothers alleged that Baker began abusing them at St. Hilary Catholic Church in Pico Rivera in 1984 when they were 5 and 7. The boys' family moved to Mexico in 1986, but Baker over the next 13 years flew them to Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Arizona, where the abuse allegedly continued until 1999, at least once in the priest's rectory in Los Angeles County.
