ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch
By Robert Patrick
Of the Post-Dispatch
09/06/2005
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis has put up a half-million dollars to keep out of jail the priest convicted last week of sodomizing a teenage boy.
Using ten checks with values ranging from $10,000 to $350,000, church officials posted bond for the Rev. Thomas Graham on the same afternoon that jurors recommended that Graham spend 20 years in prison for performing oral sex on the boy in the late 1970s, court records show.
The move attracted immediate criticism from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
"I find it hard to understand how the diocese can take the money that people donate every Sunday . . . and use it to post bond for someone who has been convicted of a crime," said Barbara Dorris, SNAP's victim outreach coordinator.
Posted by kshaw at September 7, 2005 08:10 AM