PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
Last week, the jury in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex abuse case sent a note to the judge, asking where was Billy Doe’s older brother? And why didn’t he honor a subpoena from the defense?
That set off a blame game amongst the judge and lawyers in the case trying to figure out who was responsible for the older brother of the alleged triple-rape victim not showing up in court.
They’re still arguing about why the witness didn’t show. But now we know why the defense wanted to call Billy’s older brother as a witness.
On Jan. 9, 2012, Billy’s older brother gave a signed, 14-page statement to Detective Joseph Walsh of the District Attorney’s office.
The statement showed that the older brother, then a 26-year-old lawyer, had no direct knowledge about the three alleged rapes of Billy Doe. But the older brother, who had served as an altar boy and a sexton at St. Jerome’s, contradicted Billy on several key elements of his story, such as who took care of the sacramental wine after Mass, whether priests were ever alone with altar boys, and whether the doors to the church sacristy at St. Jerome’s were ever kept locked.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.