PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Reuters
PHILADELPHIA | BY DANIEL KELLEY
A Pennsylvania appeals court on Tuesday ordered a new trial for a Roman Catholic priest who was convicted in a landmark case of mishandling reports of child sex crimes.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court found that Monsignor William Lynn of Philadelphia did not receive a fair trial because a trial judge allowed jurors to hear too much evidence about the wrongdoing of priests who had abused children.
Lynn, who once oversaw the work of 800 priests in the Philadelphia Archdiocese as secretary of the clergy, was sentenced in 2012 to three to six years in prison for failing to supervise a priest accused of sexual misconduct who later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy.
At the time of his conviction, he was the highest-ranking Catholic priest to face charges for covering up abuse by priests in the Catholic church, and his trial re-focused attention on a sex abuse scandal that has roiled the faithful across the United States and undermined the church’s moral authority around the world.
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