Police have arrested a man in connection with the May beating that sent 65-year-old retired Jesuit priest Jerold Lindner to the hospital—and the suspect, it turns out, is an alleged victim of abuse at the hands of Lindner.

Lynch, now 43, had previously accused Lindner of raping him on a weekend camping trip and forcing him and his bother to perform oral sex on each other when the boys were aged 5 and 7. They're not the only people who've accused Lindner—according to the AP, "nearly a dozen people, including his own sister and nieces and nephews" have come forward with allegations of abuse.

This particular chapter in the story happened on May 10 of this year, when Lynch called the Sacred Heart retirement home in Los Gatos, California and told the attendant that someone was coming by to tell Lindner of a death in the family. According to Rick Sung of the Santa Clara County sheriff's department:

"The Father shows up in the lobby, at which point he was asked by the suspect if he knew who he was. When the Father answered 'No,' that's when the suspect started attacking," Sung said. "He was punching him in the face and all over the body. After the Father goes down, then the suspect takes off."

Police used the record of the call—in which Lynch used his first name—to identify him as a suspect. According to the AP, he "harbored a fantasy for years of confronting the priest."

Lindner has never been criminally charged, as the allegations fall outside the statute of limitations, but he's been named in lawsuits, and the California Jesuits settled with the Lynch brothers in 1998 for $625,000.

[AP]