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  Priest's Alleged Killer Seeks to Have Case Dismissed

By Adam Gorlick
Telegram & Gazette [Worcester MA]
March 8, 2005

WORCESTER, Mass.— The convicted murderer accused of killing pedophile priest John Geoghan asked a judge Tuesday to dismiss the charges, accusing prison officials of retaliating against him because he didn't plead guilty.

Joseph Druce, already serving a life sentence for murdering a man he thought was gay, allegedly beat and strangled Geoghan in his cell at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley on Aug. 23, 2003.

In a motion filed Tuesday, Druce said prison officials have made it impossible for him to participate in his own defense by trying to limit contact with his attorney and by removing legal documents from his cell.

Druce said he was barred from viewing a surveillance video from the day of Geoghan's killing without having a prison guard looking over his shoulder. The tape, which shows Druce leaving Geoghan's cell after the murder, is evidence in the case.

He said supervisors at Souza-Baranowski were retaliating against him for failing to heed their advice that he plead guilty to Geoghan's murder.

As part of the retaliation, Druce said, his "enemies" were transferred to his cell block. One of them "created a spear-type object, smeared it with feces and stabbed my foot with it as I passed by his cell," Druce said in an affidavit filed with his motion.

"The mistreatment comes from the administration and higher-ups at the Department of Correction," Druce's lawyer, John H. LaChance, said in a pretrial hearing in Worcester Superior Court. "He's not blaming individual guards. Mr. Druce has no animosity toward the guards."

Spokeswomen for the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Correction both declined to comment on Druce's claims.

Judge Timothy Hillman scheduled an April 25 hearing on Druce's motion. The case is tentatively scheduled to go to trial in the fall.

Geoghan was a key figure in the clergy sex abuse scandal that erupted within the Boston Archdiocese in early 2002. The 68-year-old defrocked priest was serving a 10-year sentence for molesting a 10-year-old boy when he was killed in prison.

Druce is serving a life sentence for the 1988 killing of a man he thought was gay. Investigators say he jammed shut the door of Geoghan's cell so no one could enter, then beat and strangled him.

He allegedly told investigators afterward that he killed Geoghan "to save the children," but now claims that statement was coerced from him by state police in violation of his constitutional rights.

In his motion, Druce says he befriended a paralegal who was working on his case. The woman had been visiting him frequently in prison, but prison officials revoked her visitation rights, saying the visits had become more social than professional, according to Druce.

He also said officials limited the number of phone calls he was allowed to make to his attorney.

 
 

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