PENNSYLVANIA
ABC News
By JOE MANDAK, ASSOCIATED PRESS PITTSBURGH — Feb 8, 2016
A priest who was convicted of sexually assaulting poor street children during missionary trips to Honduras and said federal prosecutors wrongly withheld evidence in his case won’t get a new trial, a judge ruled.
The priest, 70-year-old Joseph Maurizio, was convicted in the sexual tourism case in September.
U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson rejected his appeal, clearing the way for him to be sentenced on March 2, barring further appeals. The Johnstown judge found that an accuser’s statement was wrongly withheld but wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the priest’s trial.
“Given the substantial evidence that exists in this case … the court finds it unlikely that a jury at a second trial would acquit defendant,” he wrote in the ruling, issued Monday.
The appeal, which prompted a hearing before the judge last week, concerned a statement given by one of the accusers who told investigators he wasn’t “abused” by the priest.
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