PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net
The lead detective in the “Billy Doe” sex abuse case didn’t find the former altar boy to be a credible witness after he spent hours confronting the alleged victim over numerous factual discrepancies in his many conflicting stories.
And when Detective Joseph Walsh voiced his doubts about the D.A.’s star witness to a top prosecutor, she didn’t want to hear about it.
“You’re damaging my case, you’re hurting my case,” is what Thomas A. Bergstrom, a lawyer for Msgr. William J. Lynn, claimed that former Assistant District Attorney Mariana Sorensen said about the star witness whose testimony sent three priests and a former Catholic school teacher to jail.
“You can’t turn a blind eye to that,” Bergstrom said when he asked Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright to invoke the ultimate penalty for prosecutorial misconduct, namely dismissing a retrial of the criminal case against Msgr. Lynn scheduled to begin May 30th.
During a three-hour pre-trial hearing today, Bergstrom and Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington battled over what Walsh and Sorensen allegedly said years ago to each other behind closed doors in the D.A.’s office. Meanwhile, the detective, now retired, was sent outside the courtroom to pace the hallway.
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