PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly
Kristen Byrne, Blogger
MyFoxPhilly.com
Prosecutors in the Philadelphia Archdiocese clergy-abuse trial charged that Monsignor William Lynn lied to police about numerous accusations involving a priest.
Countless documents detailing passionate kissing and inappropriate touching by former priest Nicholas Cudemo were read to the jury on Thursday. Between the 1960s and 1970s, Cudemo allegedly sexually assaulted at least eleven young girls, including three of his cousins.
Cudemo’s molestations occurred before Lynn’s tenure as secretary of clergy, from 1992 to 2004. The first allegation of abuse took place in 1966, when Cudemo was an assistant pastor at St. Stanislaus parish in Lansdale. Cudemo was laicized in 2005.
The archdiocese first learned of the abuse in 1991. Lynn and his then-supervisor, Monsignor James Molloy, documented the complaints in various memorandums. Various women, including Cudemo’s three cousins, came and told their horrifying stories of “mind control”, fondling and oral sex.
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