CAMBRIDGE (MA)
Boston Herald
By Marie Szaniszlo
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
A Middlesex Superior Court judge yesterday sentenced a defrocked priest at the center of the Boston archdiocese's sex abuse scandal to 12 to 15 years in prison for raping a Sunday school student in the 1980s at a Newton parish.
``I want him to die in prison, whether it's of natural causes or otherwise. However he dies, I hope it's slow and painful,'' the man said in a victim impact statement read in court by First Assistant District Attorney Lynn Rooney.
Paul Shanley, 74, stood impassively in his gray suit and glasses, his feet shackled, as Judge Stephen Neel read the sentence, saying, ``It is difficult to imagine a more egregious misuse of trust or authority.''
As the defendant shuffled out, a man shouted, ``Goodbye,'' and the rest of the courtroom burst into applause.
With time off for good behavior, Shanley could be eligible for parole in about seven years. But District Attorney Martha Coakley said she would ask a judge to declare him a ``sexually dangerous person'' to keep him locked up indefinitely.