PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Press TV (Iran)
A Roman Catholic Monsignor, the highest-ranking US church official to be convicted of covering up child sex abuse claims, has been sentenced to three to six years in prison.
The Philadelphia court on Tuesday handed down the sentence to William Lynn, who was found guilty last month of one count of child endangerment in connection to the US Roman Catholic Church scandal.
Monsignor Lynn, secretary of the archdiocese from 1994 to 2001 and tasked with investigating abuse claims, was found guilty of endangering the victim of Edward Avery, a former priest convicted in 1999 of sexual assault.
Lynn enabled “monsters in clerical garb… to destroy the souls of children,” Judge M Teresa Sarmina said.
The trial, the first in the United States involving a senior official in the Catholic Church, also centered on two more Philadelphia priests.
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