PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
MARIA PANARITIS, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
POSTED: Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Citing newly discovered evidence and errors made at trial, lawyers for a Catholic priest and an ex-parochial school teacher jailed for sexually abusing a 10-year-old altar boy made their case to an appellate panel Tuesday for overturning the men’s convictions.
Attorneys Burton A. Rose, representing former St. Jerome teacher Bernard Shero, and Michael McGovern, representing the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, alleged prosecutorial misconduct and “abuse of discretion on the part of the trial judge” who sentenced the men to prison terms in June 2013 for abuse that occurred in the late 1990s.
The lawyers said the prosecutor repeatedly made a factual error during closing arguments, and that despite defense objections, Common Pleas Judge Ellen Ceisler refused to correct the record before sending the case to the jury.
In another instance, prosecutors questioned a pediatrician as though he were an expert on child sexual abuse, but without presenting him to the jury as such or allowing defense lawyers to question his credentials, Engelhardt’s and Shero’s attorneys said.
That doctor testified of a link between testicular pain, which the victim complained of after the assaults, and sexual abuse.
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