JOHNSON CITY -- Three monks pleaded not guilty in court Monday to charges of sexual assault of a child and organized criminal activity at a Hill Country monastery in Blanco County.

The monks were charged last week after a raid at the Christ of the Hills Monastery, near Blanco. Blanco County District Attorney Sam Oatman says the raid was to search for what he called "instruments of child abuse."

The indictments relate to one boy allegedly assaulted while a teen, starting in 1993.

The monastery's founder Samuel Greene is free on his own recognizance due to health problems. Oatman says Greene waived his right to an arraignment and didn't appear in court today in Johnson City, but he also pleaded not guilty.

A fifth man, Jonathan Hitt, 45, already is serving a ten-year prison sentence for a 1999 conviction for indecency with a 14-year-old novice monk studying at the monastery in 1997. Oatman said Hitt hasn't entered a plea on the new charges.