PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
The defense lawyer for Father Andrew McCormick today accused the district attorney’s office of prosecutorial misconduct for trying to put a Catholic priest in jail “by any means necessary.”
The D.A.’s office “took every witness at their word no matter how fantastical the story was,” Trevan Borum complained to reporters outside the Criminal Justice Center.
Borum, a former prosecutor himself, said that the D.A.’s office didn’t do their homework, but “Thank God we did.” Speaking moments after a judge lifted a gag order, Borum told reporters about how the defense went out looking for witnesses to refute the prosecution’s case.
“They were easy to find,” Borum said, including a former altar boy now a state trooper who discredited a key prosecution witness. That’s how Borum managed to thwart a district attorney’s office that he said was “looking to convict a priest at all costs.”
After two heavily publicized trials in 14 months, however, both of which ended in deadlocked juries, “Father Andy” faces “an uncertain future,” his lawyer said. The priest is on administrative leave with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and still has to face a church hearing over alleged boundary violations. Then there’s the matter of his reputation, his lawyer said, after being accused in the media and the courts of something he didn’t do, an attempted rape of a 10-year-old altar boy.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.