Former Archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick was charged Wednesday in Massachusetts with three counts of assault and battery against a person over 14, after a Vatican report published last year detailed multiple allegations of sexual abuse and assault against the priest.

McCarrick, 91, has been summoned to appear in Dedham District Court in Massachusetts on Sept. 3. He has previously denied sexually assaulting minors or seminary students.

The Boston Globe first reported the news.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Massachusetts attorney who represents survivors of sexual abuse by priests and is representing McCarrick’s accuser, told the Associated Press that he believes this is the first time a Cardinal has been prosecuted in the U.S. for committing sex crimes against a minor.

The charges stemmed from allegations outlined in a letter sent to the Middlesex District Attorney’s office at an unspecified date; authorities then conducted interviews with the author, who claimed McCarrick inappropriately touched them, according to court documents.

Prior civil lawsuits filed against McCarrick by men in New York and New Jersey, who alleged he sexually assaulted them in the 70s and 90s, respectively, were unsuccessful because the statute of limitations in both states expired. The charges brought forth Wednesday by Wellesley Police were possible because McCarrick was not a Massachusetts resident, so the statute of limitations stopped running when he left the state, the Boston Globe reported.

The report released by the Vatican last year details decades of alleged abuse by McCarrick, who started as an auxiliary bishop of the Archbishop of New York in 1977 before becoming the Bishop of Metuchen New Jersey in 1981, and later the Archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000. Church leaders were allegedly aware of those reports and failed to investigate his behavior, the Vatican report said.

Accusations about McCarrick’s behavior date back to the early 1980s. In one case outlined in the Vatican report, a mother testified that McCarrick inappropriately touched her two teenage sons and gave them beer. In another, a priest stated that McCarrick solicited him for a sleepover, and started “touching” and “wrapping his legs around” him during the visit. Other anonymous letters accused McCarrick of pedophilia.

Between 1997 and 2000, church leaders considered transferring McCarrick from his position as Archbishop of Newark to Archbishop of New York, the report said. But they neglected to do so on three different occasions, allegedly concerned about reports that he regularly shared beds with young seminarians.

McCarrick was still appointed Archbishop of Washington in 2000 by Pope John Paul II and held the post for five years. Pope Francis in 2018 commissioned the Vatican report detailing how McCarrick managed to rise through the church hierarchy, following allegations made public that year that McCarrick molested an altar boy in the 1970s.

At the time he moved to Washington, McCarrick faced several allegations of sexual abuse that were reportedly known by church leaders. Pope Francis took the extraordinary step of defrocking McCarrick in 2019.

McCarrick’s attorney Barry Coburn told the Associated Press they “look forward to addressing the case in the courtroom.”

Debbie Truong contributed reporting