Several Jurors Seated In Philly Priest Abuse Case

Last updated on: February 27, 2012 at 3:44 pm by

Several Jurors Seated In Philly Priest Abuse Case 2012-02-27T15:44:17-07:00

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Jury selection moved surprisingly quickly Monday in a landmark priest abuse case in Philadelphia involving two priests charged with rape and a monsignor charged with protecting them — and failing to protect children.

Several jurors were seated for what could be a four-month trial, after assuring the judge they could fairly evaluate the sensitive issues.

Meanwhile, Monsignor William Lynn lost a last-minute bid to have his unprecedented child endangerment case throw out based on new evidence found in a 10th floor safe at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

A memo turned over by the archdiocese only this month states that the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua ordered his top aides to shred a list of 35 accused priests still in ministry in 1994 — a decade before the child abuse scandal exploded.

Lynn said he prepared the list and gave it to Bevilacqua after he became secretary for clergy in 1992 and started reviewing secret archives of priest abuse complaints. The complaints were kept in a secure room — rigged with an alarm — at the archdiocese’s downtown headquarters.

Bevilacqua discussed the issue at a 1994 meeting with his two top aides and ordered all four known copies destroyed, according to a memo signed by the late Monsignor James E. Molloy, who said he shredded them, and a witness.

But a copy of the list, and Molloy’s accompanying memo, were found in the locked safe at the archdiocese in 2006.

Prosecutors called Lynn’s bid Friday to have the charges dropped a “combination of the dead-guys-did-it and the I-was-only-following-orders defenses.” They argue that he prepared the list not to weed out predators, but to prepare for possible civil suits.

Defense lawyers say the new evidence shows Lynn was trying to address the priest abuse problem, only to have Bevilacqua quash his efforts.

They also say Bevilacqua and Molloy denied to a 2003 grand jury that they had destroyed evidence from the secret archives.

Prosecutors, in response Monday, called the 1994 list a “smoking gun” for their side. They say it shows Lynn’s deep involvement in the church child abuse conspiracy. And they argued that the safe belonged to Lynn, who left office in 2004. Lynn’s lawyers argue that Molloy stashed it in the safe.

“They (the documents) show Lynn to be the most active participant in a well-orchestrated conspiracy among Archdiocese officials to cover up the sexual crimes of priests and to keep known child molesters in ministry,” prosecutors wrote in their motion.

They say the list also shows that Lynn knew co-defendant Edward Avery was a child molester but failed to have him removed. And they say it shows that Lynn perjured himself before the grand jury.

Avery, 69, has since been defrocked. Another co-defendant, the Rev. James Brennan, 48, is no longer in active ministry.

Bevilacqua died last month at age 88.

Prosecutors never charged him or other higher-ups, other than Lynn, despite what they call a broad conspiracy that kept predator priests around children for decades.

Lynn, 61, faces up to 28 years if convicted on all counts. The archdiocese is paying for the four criminal defense lawyers advising him in court, despite the increasingly apparent complications that presents.

A gag order prevents parties in the case from commenting on the filings.

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