Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul

Father Joseph Jeyapaul arrived in Minnesota in 2004 from India and was assigned to Blessed Sacrament Parish in Greenbush, MN where reports of inappropriate behavior were made known to the Crookston diocese as early as August 2004.

Fr. Jeyapaul suddenly returned to India in September 2005 to care for his ailing mother; while there, allegations surfaced in Minnesota of an inappropriate relationship with a 16 year-old girl. Crookston Bishop, Victor Balke, contacted Jeyapaul in India and told him not to return to MN or he would go to the police. More than one year later, Jeyapaul was criminally charged with assaulting the girl.

A canonical trail was conducted by the bishop of the Diocese of Ootacamund in India and Jeyapaul was sentenced to one year in a monastery. Fr. Jeyapaul was then assigned to the Bishops office handling paperwork for schools.

In March 2012 Jeyapaul was arrested as a fugitive in India on charges out of Roseau County Minnesota involving the assault of a 16 year old girl and another woman, Megan Peterson, who was assaulted when she was 14-15 years old at Blessed Sacrament. Father Jeyapaul also spent time at a parish in Thief River Falls, MN before being assigned to Greenbush.