PHILADELPHIA (PA)
AFP
By Daniel Kelley (AFP)
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Jurors in a landmark Catholic Church sex abuse case heard closing arguments Thursday in the trial of Monsignor William Lynn, the highest-ranked US church official to be charged with covering up child molestation.
Those arguments capped more than 10 weeks of dramatic testimony in the case against Lynn, whose job it was to investigate reports of abuse in the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004. Jury deliberations were expected to start Friday.
Starkly conflicting portraits of the senior priest emerged at trial.
Lynn’s lawyer described him as a low level functionary who struggled within a rigid church hierarchy to act against abuse by documenting it and compiling the voluminous records that prosecutors used to build their case.
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