Lynn sentencing today in priest sex abuse case

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

By John P. Martin
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The sentencing today of Msgr. William J. Lynn will mark the first for a Catholic church official convicted of enabling clergy-sex abuse.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina is scheduled to sentence Lynn later this morning for failing to take steps that might have prevented a priest from sexually assaulting a 10-year-old altar boy.

Lynn, 61, faces up to seven years in state prison. He has been jailed since his June 22 conviction.

His sentencing will follow an unprecedented three-month trial that exposed decades of child-sex abuse by Archdiocese of Philadelphia priests, and showed how church leaders sometimes shuffled accused clerics to hide the misconduct from the public.

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