PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
In her opening statement to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Kristen Kemp accused “Father Andy” McCormick of taking some altar boys to see an R-rated movie.
Kemp told the jury that when the priest took the altar boys to see What Lies Beneath, he was too embarrassed to wear his Roman collar out in public, so he went to the movie theatre dressed in plainclothes.
Today in court, one of the former altar boys who went to see the film reprised that tale on the witness stand, saying it was one of the few times he’d ever seen Father Andy not dressed like a priest. Adam Visconto, now 27, said he was in seventh grade and presumably around 13 when he went to see the R-rated movie with Father Andy. The implication was the priest, wearing a polo shirt and pants, had snuck the altar boys in to a see a movie that according to its rating required kids under 17 to be accompanied by a parent or guardian.
But William J. Brennan, McCormick’s defense lawyer, brought to the courtroom a DVD copy of the 2000 supernatural suspense thriller starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pheiffer. Brennan asked the former altar boy to read the fine print on back of the box. Instead of an R-rating, the movie was rated PG-13, meaning parents were “strongly cautioned” to consider whether kids under 13 should see the movie.
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