PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
How many courtrooms does it take to unravel a lie?
In the case of “Billy Doe,” the answer these days is three.
Billy Doe is a grand jury’s pseudonym for the former altar boy turned heroin addict who told an incredible and constantly-changing story about supposedly being raped by two priests and a school teacher.
It’s a story that defies all logic and common sense, a story that was thoroughly disproved by evidence gathered by the district attorney’s own detectives. The Billy Doe case also contradicts established patterns of abuse over 40 years as exposed in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s formerly confidential secret archive files.
But in a triumph of absurdity, the three-ring legal circus starring a clown named Billy plays on.
Tomorrow, defense lawyers for Father Charles Engelhardt and former teacher Bernard Shero will be in state Superior Court, arguing that their clients, convicted of sexually abusing Billy, deserve a new trial
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