PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
Joseph A. Slobodzian, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Posted: Tuesday, January 22, 2013, 7:05 PM
Lawyers for a Philadelphia priest and an ex-parochial-school teacher on Tuesday began a two-pronged defense to convince a Common Pleas Court jury that their clients’ personalities were inconsistent with those of men who would rape a 10-year-old altar boy.
Lawyers for the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero called a series of character witnesses who testified about the pair’s reputation in the community for being peaceful and law-abiding.
Engelhardt’s lawyer, Michael McGovern, also called seven current and former teachers from St. Jerome’s parish school in the Northeast to tell the jury their memories of victim-accuser “Billy Doe.”
It is not known whether either Engelhardt, 66, or Shero, 49, will testify in his own defense.
Billy, now 24, alleges he was serially raped by Engelhardt, Shero, and one other priest during the 1997-99 school years, when he was in fifth and sixth grades.
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