BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff | January 5, 2005
The criminal case against defrocked priest Paul R. Shanley, perhaps the most notorious of all Catholic clergy involved in the sexual abuse scandal, will soon hinge only on the allegations of a single accuser, according to Shanley's lawyer, Frank Mondano.
Mondano said he told a Middlesex Superior Court judge last week that prosecutors said they will drop charges stemming from the accusations of one of the four original alleged victims. The victim would be the third dropped from the case.
Prosecutors said yesterday that charges from two accusers still stand and declined to comment further.
The latest alleged victim expected to be dropped from the case is a former Newton man in his mid-30s, identified in court papers only as Male No. 4, who has battled substance abuse and homelessness, according to a lawyer familiar with the case. Although some of the victims' names have been published in the past, a judge ordered yesterday that those names not be released.
The victim missed a recent court hearing in which he was scheduled to testify.