PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Los Angeles Times
By Michael Muskal
July 24, 2012
A Roman Catholic monsignor, William J. Lynn, was sentenced to three to six years in prison on Tuesday for covering up sexual abuses by a priest he supervised in Philadelphia.
“You knew full well what was right, Monsignor Lynn, but you chose wrong,” Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina said, according to media reports from the courtroom.
“I did not intend any harm,” Lynn said in court Tuesday. “My best was not good enough to stop that harm.”
A former secretary for clergy to the late Philadelphia Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, Lynn managed priests and investigated claims of misconduct from 1992 to 2004. With his conviction last month of child endangerment, Lynn became the first Roman Catholic church official to be convicted of a felony for covering up child sex-abuse claims against a priest.
That priest, Edward Avery, was later defrocked and is serving 2½ to 5 years in prison for sexually assaulting an altar boy in church.
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