MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe
By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff | January 8, 2005
The lawyer for Paul R. Shanley alleged in court yesterday that the man expected to be the lone accuser in the criminal case against the defrocked priest was in contact with a law firm suing the Boston Archdiocese before the date he says he recovered long-suppressed memories of sexual abuse.
The child rape case against Shanley, one of the few priests in the clergy sex abuse scandal to face criminal charges, once relied on allegations brought by four alleged victims, who were represented by the law firm Greenberg Traurig when they reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the archdiocese last year.
But two of four men have been dropped from the case by prosecutors, another is expected to be dropped, and Shanley's lawyer, Frank Mondano, is suggesting that the fourth accuser made up his allegations in a bid for financial gain.
''So your allegation is that Male No. 3 cooked up his recovered memories for private gain through the civil justice system?" Middlesex Superior Court Judge Stephen E. Neel asked.
''Correct," Mondano said.
Middlesex County prosecutors and lawyers for Greenberg Trauring disputed Mondano's allegations, saying that the fourth accuser did not sign on as a Greenberg Traurig client until more than a week after he allegedly recovered his memories of abuse.