BishopAccountability.org
 
  Jury: Shanley Guilty of Child Rape
Ex-Priest May Spend Life in Prison

By Veronica Haynes
TheBostonChannel.com [Boston MA]
February 7, 2005

BOSTON -- After three days of deliberations, a jury on Monday found defrocked priest Paul Shanley guilty of two charges of child rape and indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14.Shanley showed no emotion as the unanimous verdict was read in a Middlesex Superior courtroom. His accuser, however, rocked in his seat, cried and hugged his wife when the guilty verdict was read.

Immediately after the verdict, Judge Stephen Neel revoked Shanley's $300,000 bail and he was led to jail. Shanley will be sentenced Feb. 15 and could spend the rest of his life in prison.

"We are elated. Any time you that can get a sexual abuser, a child molester off the street is a day for all of us to be thankful," said victim advocate Bill Gately.

Shanley's accuser did not comment after the verdict, but another alleged victim, only identified as Bill, said justice prevailed.

"I am elated. I can't believe it. I just thought that he would get away with it as he always gotten away with every crime he has committed. I am very emotional; I am thrilled -- I can't tell you. For once, justice prevailed," he said.

Shanley's defense attorney, Frank Mondano, said he would appeal the verdict.

"I'm largely disappointed in that the absence of a case is not a problem to securing a conviction," he said.

The jury began deliberating Shanley's fate Thursday afternoon.

The case against Shanley, 74, hinged solely on the account of one unidentified accuser, now 27, who said that memories of abuse came flooding back a few years ago.

The defense criticized the concept of "repressed memories," and questioned the accuser's motive, noting he settled his civil case last spring for about $500,000. The defense called one witness, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, from the University of California at Irvine who testified that she doesn't believe that there is any evidence that the victim has repressed memories about the alleged abuse.

"I don't believe there is any credible scientific evidence for the idea that years of brutalization can be massively repressed," Loftus said.

The defense said the accounts of another accuser influenced the accuser's memories.

Prosecutor Lynn Rooney cross-examined Loftus, questioning discrepancies in her psychology articles and read from one article in which Loftus wrote, "This is not to say that people cannot forget horrible things that happen to them. Most certainly they can."

Earlier in the trial, prosecution witness Kathleen Bennett, a former religious teacher at the parish, testified that she did not recall any children leaving her classroom with Shanley.

"He was really nice. He seemed to get along with everybody, especially with the kids," she said.

The accuser testified that Shanley molested him at the church. He said that Shanley undressed, touched and raped him in the church's rectory in the early 1980s.

"He told me nobody would ever believe me if I told anybody," the accuser testified. "When we were done, we'd sit towards the front and he would put his right arm around me, and start touching me with his left hand."

In his closing arguments, Mondano said that the accuser has been following suggestions about the alleged abuse.

"He walked into (his doctor's) office on the morning of (Feb. 12) and said that he wants to go back to Boston and join a class-action suit and see a specialist. How many people were in on the creation of this plan on the night of the 11th? According to (the doctor), it could have been two other folks in the Air Force. We don't know how many people were involved in this plan," Mondano said.

In her closing statement, Rooney said the accuser was not testifying for settlement money. She questioned why he would put himself through such testimony.

"He came in here, and he told you what happened because that man, that defendant, that priest raped him and molested him when he was a little boy over and over again," Rooney said. "If it was all a lie, it could have been a better lie. If it was all made up, wouldn't it have been better scripted? Wouldn't there have been more details? Wouldn't there have been more information for you about the number of times?"

The accuser told the jury that Shanley started molesting him when he was 6 years old at St. Jean Parish in Newton, Mass. Archdiocese records show that church officials knew that Shanley advocated sex between men and boys. Despite that, they continued to transfer the priest from parish to parish.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.