An Indian Catholic priest was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in jail for molesting a 12-year-old girl at her home in Brooklyn in 1999.

Reverend Francis X Nelson, 39, who was removed from Brooklyn Diocese after the abuse, insisted he was innocent.

Judge Albert Tomei told the defendant, "When you became a priest, Father, you took a sacred oath. You became a trustee of your parishioners, spirits and souls. The safest haven was the church, where young women and young men could go and feel entirely safe."

He added, "You didn't steal any money. You didn't assault her physically with a slap. You took her spiritual life away. You damaged her for life by your actions. This may be a misdemeanour, but it has greater ramifications than just being a misdemeanour."

Judge Tomei gave Father Nelson a lighter sentence than the six months prosecutors requested. He was sentenced to two jail terms of four months each, to be served concurrently, for conviction on two counts of sexual abuse.

Nelson's lawyer Michael Warren said he would file an appeal. Nelson, attached at the time to the St Mary Star of the Sea Church, went to the home of a parishioner to 'visit a sick grandmother.'

While there, he pulled the girl onto his lap and 'behaved in inappropriate fashion.'

To make the case, the prosecution relied heavily on the victim, who testified in court that Nelson pulled her onto his lap and pressed himself against her. She felt uncomfortable, she told the court, and offered him a glass of water as a way of getting away.

She said Nelson pulled her onto his lap again and, this time, put his hand up her shirt and touched her breast.

Immediately after the alleged incident, the girl complained to friends and family members, who in turn spoke to the Brooklyn Diocesan authorities.

The officials found the allegations credible, said spokesperson Frank de Rosa and asked Nelson to leave the diocese.

Kottar Bishop Leon Tharmaraj, Father Nelson's patron during his early days in Tamil Nadu, had given his one time confidential secretary a letter of recommendation. Based on this, Father Nelson joined the Archdiocese of New York as a part-time priest.

Once the story of sexual abuse by priests snowballed into a controversy last year, Brooklyn Bishop Thomas Daily agreed to hand over files relating to old allegations to the civil authorities. The District Attorney's office received 42 such files, relating to allegations against 25 priests.

All but two of these cases had crossed the statute of limitations - Nelson's was one of two cases the DA found he could prosecute.

Detectives attached to the Brooklyn DA's office arrested Nelson last May from the St Charles Borromeo Church in Harlem, a parish of the Arch-diocese of New York.

Employing his attorney, Nelson in his defence told the court that the girl did sit on his knee. Explaining how it happened, he said that he was sharing his photo album with her wheelchair-bound grandmother, and perched the girl on his knee only so that she could get a better view of the pictures.

There was, he pointed out, no other chair in the room. In a case that boiled down to the word of the victim against that of the alleged perpetrator, the jury went with the victim. Nelson was convicted of second-degree sexual abuse.

"It's a time for healing a wound that deeply affected the parish," Brooklyn Diocese spokesperson, Frank De Rosa, said after the verdict was announced. "We 're grateful for the integrity of the court system in following the case."

Nelson had many admirers too. When the jury convicted him, more than 20 people from his parish, who came with him, wept and comforted each other.

The parishioners of St Mary Star of the Sea Church as well those of St Charles Borromeo Church said he was quiet and affable. "He had dinner in my house. He was very nice. He was here one day, and gone the next. We were told he'd gone back to India," Joann Smith, a parishioner at St Mary, told the media when the arrest was reported.

David Diaz, another parishioner said, "He seemed good to me. I don't know what he did on the side."

The parishioners were not given any reason for the sudden departure of Father Nelson.

Many Indian priests feel the real difference is culture. "In India we touch children without any motive," they argue. "But in the US, such behavior is viewed with suspicion. We have seen many cases filed against people, even against 70 year olds, for touching two-year-old children."

Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation continues its hunt for another Indian cleric, Father Sleeva Raju Policetti, who fled the country following allegations that he had sexual relations with a minor.

Policetti, 43, a priest from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, was at the time working as assistant pastor at the St Tarcisssus Church in Northside Chicago.

The pastor of the church informed the Chicago Archdiocese about the allegations; the diocese in turn informed the civil authorities.

Getting wind of it, Policetti fled the country on May 6, 2002. The Chicago Police Department filed charges against Policetti at the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, and issued an arrest warrant.

The FBI then filed a criminal complaint May 23 last year, charging Policetti with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The FBI told the court that Chicago police knew Policetti might flee the country and dispatched detectives to the airport on May 6. Policetti eluded them by two hours.

May 10, he called the Chicago police and told them he was in Hyderabad, and that he was uncertain about returning to Chicago to face the charges, the FBI affidavit said.

The FBI has thus far not moved for his extradition.