PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Philadelphia prosecutors will retry James J. Brennan, the former parish priest for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who was accused of trying to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996, they said Monday.
The case against Brennan, 48, ended in a mistrial last month when a Common Pleas Court jury deliberated for 13 days but deadlocked on attempted rape and child endangerment charges against him.
Brennan seemed at times a footnote in the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial, because district attorneys spent much of the three-month proceeding presenting evidence against his codefendant, Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy to Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua. Lynn was convicted of a single count of child endangerement.
But the two days that Brennan’s accuser spent on the witness stand were among the most explosive at the trial.
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