PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: Wednesday, January 23, 2013
The victim-services coordinator for the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia spent this morning on the witness stand caught in the cross-fire questioning of defense and prosecution lawyers in the sex-assault trial of a priest and a former parochial school teacher.
Lawyers for the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero called Louise Hagner as part of their continuing attack on the credibility of victim-accuser “Billy Doe” in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court trial.
Billy, now 24, alleges that Engelhardt, 66, and Shero, 49, raped and assaulted him in 1998-1999 when he was a 10-year-old altar boy at St. Jerome’s parish school in the Northeast.
Defense lawyers contend that the assaults never happened and have portrayed Billy as a troubled drug-addicted man trying to make money by suing the archdiocese.
Hagner, who said she fields sex-abuse allegations against priests and other church personnel and arranges for social and support services, testified about her telephone and in-person interviews with Billy on Jan. 30, 2009 after he called the archdiocesan sex-abuse hotline.
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