PINELLAS PARK (FL)
Legal Examiner blog
March 25, 2019
By Joseph H. Saunders
Cardinal George Pell’s lawyer made the unsuccessful and outrageous argument that one of Pell’s offenses was “plain vanilla sexual penetration case where the child is not actively participating.”
Lawyer Robert Richter made the claim while pushing for a lower sentence in a Melbourne court on Wednesday morning, asserting that the 77-year-old former Vatican treasurer had “no aggravating circumstances” and was likely “seized by some irresistible impulse.”
The sexual penetration of any minor is an aggravating circumstance and the irresistible impulse is criminal.
Each of the five offences of which Pell was found guilty carries a maximum 10 years imprisonment, and the judge outlined they were serious charges.
“This offending warrants immediate imprisonment,” prosecutor Mark Gibson told a packed courtroom, which was crowded to overflowing with journalists, lawyers and members of the public. “It involved two vulnerable boys.”
Two victim impact statements were tendered in the hearing; one from the victim who testified in Pell’s trial and one from the father of the other victim who died in 2014, but they were not made public.
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