PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WSLS
By: MARYCLAIRE DALE | Associated Press
Published: April 18, 2012
PHILADELPHIA (AP) A man who spoke of “an emptiness where my soul should be” following years of sexual abuse testified Wednesday that a priest raped him at a home owned by the current West Virginia bishop and that he was told the bishop also sexually abused a boy.
The 48-year-old man also testified in a landmark clergy abuse trial that he saw the bishop, Michael Bransfield, with a car full of boys. The man said his abuser told him Bransfield was having sex with the boy in the front seat.
Bransfield’s diocese called the trial “a circus” and said Philadelphia prosecutors are trying to smear people never charged with a crime.
“They seem to want to bludgeon witnesses, smear individuals not on trial, anything to bolster their persecution of the church,” the Wheeling-Charleston diocese said in a statement. “The trial appears to be evolving into a circus with no rules and boundaries.”
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