PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Sun News
By JOANN LOVIGLIO – Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — A second day of cross-examination of a key witness in a landmark priest abuse trial was marked by more hostile exchanges Thursday between a man who claims he was molested as a teen and the attorney representing the man’s accuser.
The accuser, who is now 30, testified that he was 14 years old when the Rev. James Brennan sexually abused him at the priest’s apartment in West Chester, outside Philadelphia. An attorney for Brennan continued grilling the man on inconsistencies from his earlier accounts of the 1996 incident and ticked off a list of reasons why he would lie about being abused, from financial gain to jealousy of the priest for spending too much time with the man’s mother.
“You’re going to sit here and tell me that … I put myself through this to get this man out of my life?” the man responded. “You are reaching, my man, you are way off.”
When the defense attorney stated that the accuser’s parents remained friends with the priest for years after the alleged abuse, then suggested that was because the accuser never told his parents because the abuse never happened, the former Marine exploded on the witness stand.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.