Priest, teacher convicted in Philadelphia sex abuse case

Priest, teacher convicted in Philadelphia sex abuse case
Associated Press January 30, 2013

PHILADELPHIA — A jury convicted a priest and teacher today in a pivotal church-abuse case that rocked the Philadelphia archdiocese and sent a church official to prison for child endangerment.

The verdict upholds the stunning account from a troubled 24-year-old policeman’s son that he was sexually abused as a boy by two priests and his sixth-grade teacher. One priest took a plea deal before trial, while the jury convicted the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and former teacher Bernard Shero of all but one count.

The 2009 complaint describing the abuse led to the landmark conviction last year of Monsignor William Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy in Philadelphia. Lynn is serving three to six years in prison for his role transferring an admitted pedophile priest to the accuser’s northeast Philadelphia parish. A string of priest victims testified in Lynn’s case, but none said they had been passed around like the policeman’s son….

The jury convicted Shero, 49, of Levittown, of rape, indecent sexual assault and other charges. They convicted Engelhardt, 66, of Wyndmoor, of charges including indecent assault of a child under 13, corruption of a minor and conspiracy with Avery. The jury deadlocked on one count, an indecent sexual assault count against Engelhardt, after deliberating since late Friday.

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2013/01/priest_teacher_convicted_in_ph.html

Jury finds Jerry Sandusky guilty on dozens of child sex abuse charges, Philadelphia Priest Trial: Jury Reaches Split Verdict In Case Of Monsignor William Lynn

Jury finds Jerry Sandusky guilty on dozens of child sex abuse charges
By the CNN Wire Staff June 22, 2012

Bellefonte, Pennsylvania (CNN) — Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was found guilty Friday on 45 of 48 counts related to sexual abuse of boys over a 15-year period.

Jurors delivered the verdict around 10 p.m. after deliberating for about 21 hours. There were convictions related to all 10 sexual abuse victims, with the three not-guilty verdicts applying to three different individuals….

During closing arguments, prosecutors described the ex-Nittany Lions defensive coordinator as a pedophile who preyed on victims using a charity he founded for troubled children, repeatedly abusing young boys in his care.

Sandusky, 68, had pleaded not guilty to the 48 charges of child sex abuse that spanned a 15-year period….

After a week of testimony, during which time witnesses graphically described sexual encounters with Sandusky that they said occurred durijng their boyhoods, jurors made their decision without ever having heard from Sandusky on the witness stand….

Eight young men testified, often in disturbingly graphic detail, of how Sandusky forced them to engage in sexual acts in various places, including showers in the Penn State coaches’ locker room, hotel rooms and the basement of his home.

One told jurors that Sandusky — whom he met, like many of the accusers, through The Second Mile foundation that the ex-coach founded — had threatened him if he told others about the abuse. Another said Sandusky warned him that he might send him home from a trip to Texas, where they’d gone to watch a Penn State bowl game.

The defense challenged the accusers’ timetable, questioned the various allegations and called multiple character witness to defend Sandusky’s stellar reputation in the community. http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/22/justice/pennsylvania-sandusky-trial/index.html

Philadelphia Priest Trial: Jury Reaches Split Verdict In Case Of Monsignor William Lynn
By MARYCLAIRE DALE 06/22/12
PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official was convicted of child endangerment but acquitted of conspiracy Friday in a landmark clergy-abuse trial, making him the first U.S. church official branded a felon for covering up abuse claims.

Monsignor William Lynn helped the archdiocese keep predators in ministry, and the public in the dark, by telling parishes their priests were being removed for health reasons and then sending the men to unsuspecting churches, prosecutors said.

Lynn, 61, served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, mostly under Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua….

Lynn had faced about 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted of all three counts he faced – conspiracy and two counts of child endangerment. He was convicted of only a single endangerment count, which carries a possible 3 1/2- to seven-year prison term.

The jury could not reach a verdict for Lynn’s co-defendant, the Rev. James Brennan, who was accused of sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in 1999.

Despite Lynn’s acquittal on the conspiracy charge, the trial exposed how deeply involved the late cardinal was in dealing with accused priests.

Bevilacqua had the final say on what to do with priests accused of abuse, transferred many of them to new parishes and dressed down anyone who complained, according to testimony. He also ordered the shredding of a 1994 list that Lynn prepared, warning that the archdiocese had three diagnosed pedophiles, a dozen confirmed predators and another 20 possible abusers in its midst.

Church lawyers turned over a surviving copy of the list days after Bevilacqua died….

With the verdict, after 13 days of deliberations, jurors concluded that prosecutors failed to show that Lynn was part of a conspiracy to move predator priests around.

The jury, however, did find that Lynn endangered the victim of defrocked priest Edward Avery, who pleaded guilty before trial to a 1999 sexual assault. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/22/philadelphia-priest-trial_n_1619355.html

A Troubled Silence, Jury breaks without verdict in Philadelphia church abuse case

Op-Ed Contributor – A Troubled Silence
By RICHARD B. GARTNER June 7, 2012

THE revelation this week of alleged widespread child abuse at the elite Horace Mann School in New York City, most of it occurring during the 1970s and ’80s, is only the most recent instance of men coming forward, many years after the fact, with horrific stories of sexual molesting from their childhood.

Most of those accused of the abuse in the Horace Mann case are dead, but under New York State law, if alive they would most likely be safe from justice. The state’s statute of limitations on child abuse is five years from the victim’s 18th birthday. After age 23, the victim has no recourse.

Yet young adults, particularly men, who suffer the aftereffects of abuse are rarely in an emotional state to bring charges. Given what we now know about why it takes victims so long to come forward, the law needs to be changed.

Many people cast a skeptical eye on those who wait so long to reveal instances of child abuse, particularly when it happened to them as teenagers. They assume that accusers are making it up, blaming what were at most minor incidents for their troubles.

But in my decades of experience working with abuse victims, I have found that men spend years putting their emotions in a deep freeze or masking post-traumatic reactions with self-defeating behaviors like compulsive gambling and substance abuse. Eventually, they are forced by internal or external events to find treatment….

Finally, since boyhood abuse was not part of the public conversation until recently, many boys and men assumed their experiences were repulsive and aberrant. And a man who has not talked about it might feel it would be humiliating to first disclose it in middle age or later. Needless to say, the decades spent trying to bury the memories rarely work….

Things may be changing, thanks, in part, to the recent spate of abuse revelations. Many older victims have gained the courage to come forward. In my own practice, I received almost as many calls from sexually abused men in December and January, soon after allegations surfaced about abuse by the former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, as I usually get in a year. With Mr. Sandusky’s trial set to begin next week, I expect to get even more calls.

But more needs to be done. Every year since 2005, Margaret M. Markey, a New York State assemblywoman, has introduced a bill to extend the statute of limitations for five more years, a modest increase; it would also create a one-year window for adults up to age 53 to bring charges against alleged abusers. The bill has passed the Assembly four times but has consistently been blocked from coming to the floor of the Senate, largely thanks to fierce lobbying by the Roman Catholic Church….

Richard B. Gartner is a psychologist and psychoanalyst and the author of “Beyond Betrayal: Taking Charge of Your Life After Boyhood Sexual Abuse.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/opinion/in-light-of-child-abuse.html

Jury breaks without verdict in Philadelphia church abuse case
June 7, 2012 PHILADELPHIA (Reuters)

A Philadelphia jury ended its fifth day of deliberations on Thursday without reaching a verdict in the child sex abuse trial of a Roman Catholic monsignor, the highest-ranking U.S. clergyman to stand trial in the church’s wide-ranging pedophilia scandal. Monsignor William Lynn, who supervised hundreds of priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese for 12 years as secretary of the clergy, is accused of conspiracy and child endangerment. If convicted on all charges, he faces the possibility of 21 years in prison….

Prosecutors say Lynn, 61, covered up child sex abuse allegations, often by transferring priests to unsuspecting parishes.

Lynn’s motive was to avoid scandal and any potential loss of money for the church, they argued. His job was to supervise 800 priests, which included investigating sex abuse claims, from 1992 to 2004.

The defense said Lynn tried to handle documented cases of pedophile priests, making a list in 1994 of 35 accused predators and writing memos to suggest treatment and suspensions. He was hampered because he could only make recommendations to the head of the archdiocese, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who died in January at age 88, the defense said….

The Philadelphia jury also is deliberating the fate of the Reverend James Brennan, 48, who is charged with child endangerment and the attempted rape of a 14-year-old child in 1996.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-churchbre8561g8-20120607,0,7146796.story

Prosecution rests in Philadelphia Archdiocese child sex abuse trial

Prosecution rests in Philadelphia Archdiocese child sex abuse trial
Dave Warner Reuters May 17, 2012

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – The prosecution rested its case on Thursday against Philadelphia Archdiocese Monsignor William Lynn, the most senior U.S. clergyman to go to trial in the Roman Catholic Church’s pedophilia scandal.

During nearly eight weeks of startling testimony about the lurid lives of predatory priests, Lynn, a former secretary of the clergy, has sat stoically in his clerical garb as the case unfolded in an often-packed courtroom.

Lynn, 61, is charged with child endangerment and conspiracy over accusations he covered up child sex abuse allegations against priests, many of whom were simply transferred to unsuspecting parishes.

He faces the possibility of 28 years in prison if convicted.

The trial that started on March 26 has drawn a spotlight on the Philadelphia Archdiocese, the nation’s sixth largest with 1.5 million members, in a case experts say is likely being watched by the Vatican.

Defense lawyers promised to begin their case on Tuesday to bolster Lynn’s argument that he acted responsibly, reporting allegations to higher officials, but was overruled.

Lynn served in essence as the personnel director of the archdiocese under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, the long-time archbishop of Philadelphia….

A grand jury that indicted Lynn and four others said in its January 2011 report that “Over the past two decades, Msgr. Lynn has put literally thousands of children at risk of sexual abuse by placing them in the care of known child molesters.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-crime-churchbre84g1hd-20120517,0,5467080.story

Philadelphia Priest Trial Painful, Poignant For Catholics

Philadelphia Priest Trial Painful, Poignant For Catholics
By MARYCLAIRE DALE 04/21/12

PHILADELPHIA — Graphic testimony in a Philadelphia clergy-abuse trial this month has ripped open secret church files and reopened old wounds among Catholics as scarred men and women tell jurors that priests groped, molested or raped them as teens.

The testimony has proven both painful and poignant, especially that of a 48-year-old man who said he had been in love with his parish priest during a five-year sexual relationship that began in ninth grade – and jealous when the priest allegedly bedded down at his farmhouse with other teens.

The stories have been told before, in two Philadelphia grand jury reports and in lawsuits filed around the country.

But Monsignor William Lynn’s decision to go to trial on child-endangerment charges stemming from his 12 years as secretary for clergy has brought the grand jury reports to life – and seemingly put the archdiocese on trial. The judge is allowing testimony about more than 20 accused but uncharged priests, because Lynn knew of complaints lodged against them or took part in internal church investigations.

The accused priests were left in ministry, often transferred to unsuspecting parishes.

Nearly a dozen alleged victims have testified, while internal church memos and Lynn’s 2002 grand jury testimony have been read aloud. And jurors will soon hear from a former altar boy who says he was raped by two priests and his fifth-grade teacher….

Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged with helping the church cover up complaints of child sexual abuse. He faces up to 28 years in prison if convicted….

Lynn, 61, is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, 48, who is charged with sexually assaulting a teen in 1996. Each has pleaded not guilty. Defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges days before trial, and is serving a 2-1/2 to 5-year prison term.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/21/pa-priest-trial-painful-p_n_1443041.html

Trial: Priest joked about abusing 3 boys in week

Trial: Priest joked about abusing 3 boys in week
By MARYCLAIRE DALE 4/3/12

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Jurors in a landmark priest-abuse trial heard Monday about a priest-turned-camp prowler and another who allegedly bragged about having sex with three boys in one week….

Monsignor William Lynn is on trial for child endangerment and conspiracy. Lynn, 61, is the first Roman Catholic church official in the U.S. charged for his handling of priest-abuse complaints. Prosecutors say he helped the church bury them in secret files, far from the prying eyes of investigators, civil attorneys and concerned Catholics.

In the day’s most startling testimony, a detective read internal church memos about a priest who allegedly “joked about how hard it was to have sex with three boys in one week.” His accuser also stated that the priest had a “rotation process” of boys spending time sleeping with him.

Defense lawyers argue that Lynn tried to address the problem as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, but was blocked by the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and others in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

The testimony Monday also included a 1992 complaint about a different priest who allegedly molested boys at a church-owned camp three decades earlier.

Several junior counselors complained in the early 1960s that the priest was on the prowl at night, molesting them in their tents. They said it was a well-known secret among teen counselors for several years.

The priest remained in ministry, working at three archdiocesan high schools and serving as assistant superintendent of Catholic schools through 2004. Confronted after a man complained to the archdiocese in 1992, the priest admitted to the “sin” of masturbation and said he had read up on that subject because so many people were mentioning it in the confessional….

His 28-year-old son, Arthur Jr., died of a drug overdose in 2006, after his civil lawsuit against the church accusing his high school principal of molesting him was thrown out because of legal time limits. The former principal, a Franciscan friar, is in prison for stealing nearly $900,000 from the school and the Franciscans, some of which fed the younger Baselice’s drug addiction, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors are detailing allegations made against nearly two dozen priests since 1948 to show that Lynn and other archdiocesan officials kept suspected predators in jobs around children.

On cross-examination Monday, defense lawyers Jeffrey Lindy and Thomas Bergstrom had detectives concede that Lynn promptly interviewed both complainants and accused priests, and sent the priests to a church-run hospital for mental health evaluations and treatment….

He remained there until 2004, when a church panel reviewing complaints in the wake of the national priest-abuse scandal found the allegations against him credible. The priest only then admitted molesting three boys, and explained earlier denials on the fact he had confessed and moved past it.

The archdiocese restricted his ministry — 40 years after the camp allegations first surfaced.
http://news.yahoo.com/trial-priest-joked-abusing-3-boys-week-205857367.html