Accused Priest Commits Suicide

A Roman Catholic priest who had been accused of molesting Southern California boys over two decades committed suicide in Washington, D.C., police said Saturday.

Father Ted Llanos, 50, killed himself Monday, police spokeswoman Haydee Carter said. She gave no details, citing department policies on suicides.

Llanos was charged last year with sexually molesting five youths - most of them altar boys at the time - while he was assigned to five Southern California churches, beginning in 1973. In February, a Long Beach, Calif., Municipal Court judge dismissed the charges because the statute of limitations had expired.

After the charges were dismissed, former altar boys filed a lawsuit alleging that Llanos sexually abused them in the 1970s and that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles covered it up.