NEW HAMPSHIRE
WMUR
KEENE, N.H. — Lawyers for a former Keene priest convicted of sexually abusing three boys are questioning his main accuser’s story and fighting to get him a new trial.
The Rev. Gordon MacRae was convicted in 1994 of sexually abusing boys in the 1980s. He has always maintained his innocence, and his attorneys said new statements from some who knew the main accuser cast doubt on the charges.
“We have information from these people that the church was seen at the time as almost as a cash machine,” said attorney Robert Rosenthal. “You make an accusation and you can get a nice settlement, and the accuser here, as well as his relatives, did just that.”
In the motion for a new trial filed by Rosenthal and attorney Carol Green, they said the accuser “had a reputation — at least among the community of family and friends — as a schemer and liar.”
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