Spotlight on abuse: Episcopal priest Donald W. Belcher

the Rev. Donald W. Belcher was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Diocese of Montana in 1997 and served at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Libby from 1996 to 2001. He was vicar of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in Street, Maryland from 2001 to 2007, and associate priest at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Abindgon in 2008. Belcher retired to northwestern Montana and was owner of the Dirty Shame Saloon in Yaak, Montana at the time of his arrest in December 2010. In January 2011 Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland prohibited Belcher from exercising any priestly functions. Belcher pleaded guilty in April 2011 to molesting a 15-year-old disabled girl in June 2006 and her 8-year-old sister in September 2010 while living in North East, Maryland. He was sentenced to five years of supervised probation.