BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun
By A Sun Staff Writer
Originally published January 3, 2005, 5:00 PM EST
The trial of former priest Maurice Blackwell was postponed today because neither the prosecution nor defense attorneys were prepared to begin. It's the sixth time Blackwell's trial has been delayed.
Circuit Judge Stuart R. Berger postponed the trial until Feb. 10. The trial is expected to last a week and a half.
Blackwell, a Baltimore priest accused of sexually abusing a parishioner who shot the cleric years later, was recently defrocked in an irrevocable decree by Pope John Paul II.
Blackwell, 58, is to go on trial on four counts of child sexual abuse against Dontee Stokes, 28, whom he baptized as a child and mentored as a teenager at St. Edward Catholic Church in West Baltimore. Stokes, who has accused Blackwell of sexually abusing him between 1989 and 1992, shot the older man in 2002.