An 85-year-old retired priest from West Virginia was sentenced Thursday, Aug. 10, to serve three to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a boy in Center Township.

In addition to the prison sentence, Perry Malacaman, a retired Catholic priest from Beckley, W.Va., was ordered to serve 36 months of probation after his release from prison, pay a $500 fine, and comply with the state parole board’s special conditions for sex offenders.

State police arrested Malacaman in August 2022, charging him with assaulting a boy more than five times over a five-year period beginning in May 2012 when he was 9 to 14 years old and Malacaman was 74 to 79 years old.

The boy told police that Malacaman would wake him around 2 or 3 a.m., take him to the basement, repeatedly touch his genitals and perform oral sex.

According to police, the boy’s father contacted Malacaman via video call after learning about the abuse. When confronted by the father, Malacaman allegedly said he put lotion on the child for eczema and apologized. Court documents say Malacaman was a priest at St. Francis de Sales Church in West Virginia.

Malacaman pleaded guilty to a felony count of sexual assault. Felony charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a person under 16 years old and corruption of minors, and a misdemeanor charge of indecent assault of a person under 16 were withdrawn in a plea agreement. He is being held in the county prison in lieu of $200,000 bail.

Butler County Common Pleas Court Judge Kelley Streib imposed the sentence.