PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Boston Globe
By Maryclaire Dale
Associated Press / April 18, 2012
PHILADELPHIA—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 clergy-abuse trial that he saw the bishop, Michael Bransfield, with a car full of “fair-haired” boys. He said that his abuser told him Bransfield was having sex with the boy in the front seat.
Another man has testified that Bransfield had a lewd conversation with him.
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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