PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
Thursday, March 14, 2013
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
If the 2011 Grand Jury report on sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was a term paper, the district attorney would have gotten a failing grade for sloppy work habits and more than 20 factual errors.
It’s too bad they’re not taking questions down at the D.A.’s office right now, because the public has a right to know what went wrong with this grand jury report. But the spokesperson for the D.A.’s office has refused to answer questions all week.
The factual errors in the grand jury report are contradicted by grand jury testimony, trial testimony, and the results of the district attorney’s own investigation.
It’s a shameful work product. Somebody screwed up.
Let’s take a look at what the grand jury report said. It’s posted online, so readers can check it out for themselves.
Let’s start with the biggest mistake. Eleven times in the grand jury report, the district attorney said that Father James J. Brennan raped 14-year-old Mark Bukowski back in 1996. This excerpt is from pages 11 and 12 of the grand jury report:
Father Brennan, who was now shirtless, insisted that Mark remove his gym shorts and climb into bed with him in only his underwear, which Mark did. Mark attempted to sleep on his side, with his back to Father Brennan, because he was afraid to look at the priest. As Mark lay in that position, Father Brennan hugged him from behind, resting his chin on Mark’s shoulder and pulling the boy closer to him.
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.