Cardinal George Pell sentenced to 6 years for sexual abuse

An Australian judge has sentenced Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell to 6 years in prison for sexually abusing 2 choirboys in the late 1990s, reports the AP.

Details: Chief Judge Peter Kidd handed down the sentence to Pell, 77 — the most senior Vatican official to be convicted of sex abuse — on Wednesday from Victoria's County Court in Melbourne. He was convicted on 5 counts in a clandestine 5-week trial in December and has been ordered to serve a minimum of 3 years and 8 months before he is eligible for parole. He had denied the allegations and plans to appeal the convictions in June.

Go deeper: The stunning scale of the global Catholic sex abuse crisis