PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
A former Bucks County altar boy testified today that one of the two Philadelphia priests on trial for conspiracy and child endangerment molested him when he stayed at the cleric’s apartment in 1996.
The witness, now 30, broke down several times as he told a Common Pleas Court jury about the assault by the Rev. James J. Brennan that he said plunged him into a spiral of drugs, crime and suicide attempts and still haunts him.
He said Brennan, a family friend he once loved like an uncle, showed him Internet sex-chat rooms, proposed they masturbate together then ordered him into a bed where the priest, clad in boxer shorts, wrapped his arms around him and pressed his private parts against the boy.
“He kept pulling me forward, forward, forward,” the man testified, fighting back tears. “I couldn’t get off the bed. I still feel the sensation today. It’s horrible.”
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