PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2017
By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net
Like the Pope used to be, prosecutors think they’re infallible.
And when they screw up, or get caught playing dirty, they don’t apologize.
But today in Common Pleas Court, the nearest thing to a correction just happened — Judge Ellen Ceisler signed off on a deal struck between the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office and Bernard Shero’s lawyers to let Shero out of jail nearly a dozen years early.
Shero, 54, is the former schoolteacher doing 8 to 16 years for his 2013 conviction by a jury on charges that included rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child, endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor, and indecent assault. But Shero’s conviction comes with a big asterisk — the alleged victim in the case was Danny Gallagher, AKA “Billy Doe,” the former altar boy who has since been outed as a complete fraud.
Shero, 54, has already done 4 years, 6 months and two weeks in jail for crimes that never happened. He has another 11 1/2 years to go on his maximum sentence. But as soon as tomorrow, he’ll be walking out of State Correctional Institution in Houtzdale, thanks to a deal finalized today during a half-hour teleconference between the prison and Judge Ceisler’s courtroom at the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia.
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