CANADA
Bay Today
The Canadian Press
WINNIPEG – The lawyer for a former archbishop found guilty of sexually assaulting an altar boy in the 1980s says Manitoba’s highest court should consider fresh evidence and overturn the verdict.
Seraphim Storheim was convicted early this year of sexually assaulting a boy who had come to visit him in Winnipeg in 1985.
Storheim’s lawyer, Jeff Gindin, presented three Appeal Court judges with photos and documents Friday that suggest the boy was in Winnipeg in 1986 and not 1985.
Storheim’s handwriting on the pictures says a boy “not from here” is participating in a church ceremony in 1986.
Gindin argued that the evidence casts doubt on the credibility of the victim and the Crown’s version of events.
“I never suggested this evidence taken by itself was a smoking gun,” he told the judges. “It could have been used to cross-examine witnesses presented by the Crown in a different way.”
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