CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Herald Tribune
By PAM BELLUCK
New York Times
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 7 - Paul R. Shanley, a defrocked priest who became a lightning rod for the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, was convicted on Monday of raping and assaulting a boy when he was a parish priest in suburban Boston in the 1980's.
Mr. Shanley, 74, was one of the few priests to face criminal charges in the scandal, and his conviction came in a case in which prosecutors relied almost solely on one accuser, who said he had repressed the memory of the abuse until reading a newspaper article about Mr. Shanley three years ago.
After deliberating for nearly 15 hours beginning last Thursday, the jury of seven men and five women pronounced Mr. Shanley guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault on a child. Judge Stephen A. Neel of Middlesex Superior Court revoked Mr. Shanley's bail and scheduled him to be sentenced on Feb. 15. He could face up to life in prison.