PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter
Ralph Cipriano | Dec. 22, 2015
PHILADELPHIA
A Pennsylvania appeals court has vacated the conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn, and ordered a new trial for the Philadelphia archdiocese’s former secretary for clergy.
Lynn, convicted in 2012 on a single count of endangering the welfare of a child, had been serving a three-to-six year prison sentence. He was the first Catholic administrator in the country to be sent to jail for failing to adequately supervise a sexually abusive priest.
In a 43-page decision, a panel of three state Superior Court judges ruled that the trial court — Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina — “abused its discretion” by allowing 21 supplemental cases of sex abuse to be admitted as evidence against Lynn.
The 21 cases dated back to 1948, three years before Lynn was born, and took up at least 25 days of the 32-day trial. In his appeal, Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, argued that the prosecution “introduced these files to put on trial the entire Archdiocese of Philadelphia, hoping to convict [Lynn] by proxy for the sins of the entire church.”
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