The priest accused of abusing a student in a half-century old sexual abuse case against the Delbarton School took the stand in Morristown on Wednesday and insisted he was not even on campus on the day of the alleged assault.

Instead, Richard Lott testified, he was at a Jersey Shore church on New Year's Eve in 1975, when he is accused of molesting a 15-year-old student at the elite Morris County prep school.

"I was assigned to St. Mary's Parish on weekends to celebrate Mass and hear confessions," said Lott, a now-89-year-old cleric who was an instructor and head of maintenance at Delbarton in the 1970s.

The lawsuit, brought by a former student identified only as "T.M.," is the first of 39 abuse cases pending against the Morris Township school to go court. It's also believed to be the

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