MASSACHUSETTS
Salem News
BY JULIE MANGANIS STAFF WRITER
IPSWICH — The lawyer for a priest charged with raping a boy at an Ipswich summer camp more than three decades ago suggested to jurors Monday that the accusations are motivated by one thing: money.
“What’s the motive here?” Steve Neyman, who is the Rev. Richard McCormick’s attorney, asked the Lawrence Superior Court jury during closing arguments. He recalled testimony about the accuser first speaking with a civil attorney. “The motive is money.”
But if that was the motive, argued prosecutor Kate MacDougall, wouldn’t the accuser’s story have been more complete, his gaps in memory filled in? “Why isn’t it better? Why didn’t he fill in all these gaps if it was about money?” she asked the jury.
McCormick, 73, is facing five counts of child rape stemming from incidents that prosecutors say took place during the summers of 1981 and 1982 at the camp operated by the Salesian Society of North America, a religious order in which he held a position equivalent to a bishop.
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