MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald
Brian Dowling Thursday, July 27, 2017
Sexual abuse survivors and their lawyers protested the clinical findings that led to the release of convicted pedophile priest Paul Shanley and warned the 86-year-old defrocked cleric will be a public danger to children and adults when he gets out of jail tomorrow.
Attorney Carmen L. Durso, who represented many of Shanley’s victims, slammed the conclusions of two doctors who said the former priest is no longer considered “sexually dangerous” for the purposes of having him civilly committed after serving 12 years for the rape and indecent assault of a child.
“If Paul Shanley doesn’t qualify as a sexually dangerous person then nobody will qualify,” Durso said. “The standards used here are archaic, erratic. The law has to be changed.”
Durso and attorney Mitchell Garabedian said officials from the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office who commissioned the clinical evaluations told them Shanley was found not to be “sexually dangerous” partially because of his advanced age.
“Age is not a factor when it comes to pedophile priests sexually abusing innocent children,” Garabedian said.
Rodney Ford, the father of Gregory Ford, whose abuse case sent Shanley to jail, said the former priest destroyed the lives of his son, his family members and “so many other victims.”
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