PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2014
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
The ordeal is over for Father Charles Engelhardt.
The 67-year-old priest died Sunday at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa. following emergency bypass surgery, according to Father James J. Greenfield, provincial of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, Father Engelhardt’s religious order.
“A beautiful and holy man” was how his lawyer, Michael J. McGovern, described him.
At his death, Father Engelhardt was an inmate at the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township, Northumberland County, where he had served nearly two years of a 6-to-12 year-sentence. The priest was convicted on Jan. 30, 2013 of endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and indecent assault. His accuser, however, was “Billy Doe,” the former altar boy turned heroin addict who had all kinds of credibility issues.
To Father Engelhardt’s family and lawyer, the priest was an innocent man falsely accused and wrongly convicted in a case overflowing with reasonable doubt. When the priest died at the hospital, no family member was present.
Father Greenfield saw Father Engelhardt two days before he died. Despite being handcuffed to a hospital bed and under guard by two armed correctional officers, “Charlie” appeared to be in good spirits, Father Greenfield said.
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