PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2013
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
Judge Ellen Ceisler just sent two innocent men to jail.
Even people inside the district attorney’s office know that Father Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero are innocent.
It should have never gotten this far. Billy Doe told an unbelievable story about a former altar boy being passed around like a pinata among three rapists. It’s an x-rated fractured fairy tale makes no sense in any of its various versions. Billy Doe should have been laughed out of the D.A.’s office.
Instead, when Billy told his improbable tale, the D.A. and a couple of gullible prosecutors bought it. Whether they were blinded by misguided empathy, political ambition, or hatred of the church, it doesn’t really matter. It was as if they all got high on whatever Billy was peddling.
It was a story with no corroborating witnesses or evidence, just the tales of a drug-addled goofball who had been and out of 23 drug rehabs in the past 10 years and had once bragged to a drug counselor that he was a natural salesman. In court he proved his point; perhaps he’ll switch from selling drugs to selling used cars.
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