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Rhode Island — The Attorney General's Report (2026)

Rhode Island's Attorney General, working from files the Diocese of Providence voluntarily opened under a 2019 Memorandum of Understanding, identified 75 clergy credibly accused of abusing at least 315 minors — and listed 72 of them in Appendix A.

Issuing office
Office of the Rhode Island Attorney General (Peter F. Neronha)
Report
Report on Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children in the Diocese of Providence
Released
March 4, 2026
Scope
Diocese of Providence; records from 1950
Headline figures
75 clergy identified investigation-wide; 72 listed in Appendix A; at least 315 minors
Posture
Determined credibly accused by the Attorney General under the Memorandum of Understanding standard

The investigation

Rhode Island’s report rests on a different model from most state investigations in this archive: a diocese that opened its files. The investigation opened in July 2019, and on July 22, 2019, Attorney General Peter F. Neronha and Bishop Thomas J. Tobin signed a voluntary Memorandum of Understanding under which the Diocese of Providence produced its internal clergy-abuse records to the Attorney General’s office.

Investigators reviewed more than 250,000 pages of diocesan documents dating back to 1950, attempted to reach over 300 victims, and made contact with nearly 150 of them. The resulting report was released on March 4, 2026. Read alongside the other state investigations in The Pattern, it shows what an attorney general can establish when files are handed over rather than fought over.

75 and 72 — both numbers, explained

Coverage of this report has used two totals — 75 and 72. Both are the Attorney General’s own numbers; they count different sets, and this page keeps them separate.

75 is the investigation-wide total. As the report states it, the investigation identified 75 clergy — 61 diocesan priests and deacons, 13 religious-order members, and one extern priest — who allegedly abused at least 315 minors between 1950 and 2011.

72 is the number listed in Appendix A, which contains summaries of the clergy the Attorney General determined to have been credibly accused in the Diocese of Providence.

The Foreword explains the difference. Four priests were charged as a result of the investigation. Three of those charged priests are still awaiting trial, and, in the report’s words, “this Report does not address the allegations against these individuals.” Because the report does not address them, they are not named on this page and they are not in Appendix A: 75 minus those three is 72.

The fourth charged man is treated differently, because his case can no longer go to trial. Edward Kelley was declared incompetent and died in 2022. He is included in Appendix A, and this archive carries him as the fact sheet of the report records him.

The determination standard

Unlike some attorneys general in this series, Rhode Island’s Attorney General does make credibility determinations — the “credibly accused” posture here is the Attorney General’s own, reached under the standard written into the Memorandum of Understanding.

The MOU standard, verbatim: "a reasonable basis to believe that the alleged conduct more likely than not occurred, as determined by the Attorney General"

That standard is carried alongside the report’s presumption-of-innocence language: the allegations described do not constitute findings of guilt, and the individuals named are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. Appendix A adds that its details are allegations, not facts proven in a courtroom or admitted by the accused.

Even with that caution in place, this is the strongest determination wording of any report in this archive’s state series: not a compilation of allegations a diocese received, and not a list an office declined to judge, but a determination made by the Attorney General himself, under a stated more-likely-than-not test.

What is not in the roster

Appendix C of the report names 11 additional clergy. They are not in Appendix A, and they are not carried in this archive as part of the Rhode Island roster.

The reason is the Attorney General’s own. Those 11 were deemed credibly accused by a religious order or another diocese, and at some point served in Providence — but the Attorney General states it has no information they were credibly accused in Rhode Island. A determination made elsewhere is not a Rhode Island determination, and this archive does not present it as one.

In this archive

Most of the 72 Appendix A clergy were already in the Directory from the Diocese of Providence’s own list or from another diocese’s, and their entries are annotated to reflect the Attorney General’s report. The report’s remaining names stand at Tier 2, sourced to Appendix A under the AG-determination posture described above. One entry, Fr. James Jackson, is flagged in this archive’s research as a later court-record verification candidate, because the report itself records his federal guilty plea; he remains Tier 2 until that verification is done.

Sources

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