PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The New York Times
By JON HURDLE
Published: September 18, 2012
PHILADELPHIA — The Philadelphia district attorney’s office on Tuesday challenged a claim by lawyers for a convicted Roman Catholic monsignor that prosecutors had persuaded another priest, now defrocked, to falsely admit to sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in order to obtain the conviction.
Lawyers for Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former senior official in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who was convicted in June of child endangerment, filed a motion Monday in Pennsylvania Superior Court claiming that Edward V. Avery, the former priest, had not in fact abused the boy but had been pressured by prosecutors into signing a plea deal saying he had done so, in return for a lighter prison sentence than he might otherwise have received.
Monsignor Lynn was found guilty of endangering children by failing to stop abuse by priests under his supervision. He is the most senior official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States to be convicted of charges relating to sexual abuse of children by priests. The conviction was for lax oversight of Mr. Avery, who spent six months in a church psychiatric center in 1993 after an abuse episode. Doctors said he should be kept away from children. But Monsignor Lynn sent him to live in a rectory and did not warn parish officials.
Mr. Avery’s alleged abuse of the boy was central to the conviction of Monsignor Lynn, whose lawyers are asking the court to reconsider its previous denial of bail. The lawyers said in the motion that they received evidence in late August that Mr. Avery denied assaulting the boy, or even knowing him, and that he had passed a polygraph exam testing whether he was lying about the abuse.
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