PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Judge rules that each side will be allowed its own psychologist in Somerset priest’s sex trial
By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Dueling psychologists will be allowed to testify in the government’s sex case against the Rev. Joseph Maurizio, a Somerset County priest charged with traveling to Honduras to molest boys in an orphanage.
U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson ruled today that Frank Dattilio, an Allentown psychologist, will be permitted to testify for the defense should the government call its own expert, Veronique Valliere, a Lehigh Valley psychologist.
Neither expert has interviewed the three main witnesses in the case, all young Honduran men who say Rev. Maurizio fondled them and took pictures of them naked between 2004 and 2009 during mission trips to the orphanage.
Both sides filed objections against the inclusion of each others’ experts, but the judge said both can testify.
Dr. Valliere is expected to discuss the general characteristics of victims of sex offenses, detailing how they often delay reporting sex abuse or don’t tell the entire story of what happened to them out of shame or fear.
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