GREAT FALLS — Richard Brennan, who served as an on-call chaplain at Benefis Health System in Great Falls for several years, was sentenced in his home country of Ireland after he admitted to sexually assaulting his sisters more than 40 years ago.
According to the Irish Times, Brennan was sentenced to eight years for a total of 24 offenses.
During his trial in Ireland in March, Brennan admitted to the offenses, which occurred when his sisters were minors.
The Irish Times said that Brennan was between 16 and 20 years old at the time of the crimes.
We contacted Benefis today, and they replied with the following statement:
Richard Brennan is a former employee whose work involved little interaction with patients individually. His part-time, limited scope as a Benefis employee almost exclusively consisted of team-based interactions. We received no complaints about Richard from patients or other employees during his tenure with the organization. In March 2025, we became aware that Richard faced serious allegations outside of the United States, and at that time he resigned from his position at Benefis. The organization believes in the philosophy of assuming innocence until guilt is proven or admitted and was unaware of the extent of the allegations against Richard prior to the publicity surrounding his sentencing.
The Irish Times noted: "Three sisters who were sexually abused by their brother over years in their south Dublin family home have voiced 'deep disappointment' over the 'leniency' of his eight-year prison sentence."
The Journal of Ireland reported the following information:
He pleaded guilty to four sample charges of indecent assault and four rape charges against Paula Faye on dates between January 1978 and December 1981, when she was aged between 13 and 17 years old. Brennan also pleaded guilty to 13 sample incidences of indecent assault and two charges of rape against a second sister, Catherine Wrightstone, on dates between June 1980 and December 1984 while she was aged between nine and 14 years old. He finally pleaded guilty to indecent against the oldest of the sisters, Yvonne Crist, when she was about 20 years old on dates between June 1979 and June 1980. Brennan was between 17 and 24 years old at time of the offending.
