PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By John P. Martin
Inquirer Staff Writer
In March, Edward Avery made a bombshell decision: He took a plea deal.
Avery, a former priest, admitted he had sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy in 1999. He was sentenced to 21/2 to five years in prison.
Weeks later, the victim described the attack for jurors at the landmark clergy sex-abuse trial of Avery’s codefendant, Msgr. William J. Lynn. After hearing the testimony, the jury convicted Lynn of endangerment because he had let Avery live at the boy’s parish.
On Monday, Lynn’s lawyers dropped their own bombshell in their latest bid to free him on bail. They said that Avery lied about abusing the altar boy in order to win a lighter term, and that “zealous and single-minded prosecutors” hid the information from them because they were determined to convict Lynn, the first church official charged with enabling abuse.
In a motion in Superior Court, Lynn’s lawyers say they learned last month that Avery gave prosecutors a statement, and took a polygraph test, in which he denied even knowing the victim, much less assaulting him twice after Masses at St. Jerome Church in Northeast Philadelphia.
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