TOLEDO (OH)
Court TV
By Harriet Ryan
Court TV
TOLEDO, Ohio — The jury that convicted the Rev. Gerald Robinson Thursday listened to 41 witnesses during the three-week trial, but they did not hear every piece of information authorities uncovered in the course of their investigation.
Prosecutors were barred by law from presenting some evidence against the priest. Other information was deemed irrelevant to the murder of Sr. Margaret Ann Pahl or open to too many interpretations to benefit their case. Among the things jurors did not hear:
The polygraph. Two weeks after the murder, Robinson failed a lie detector exam given by a police investigator. A retest administered by a polygrapher hired by the Catholic diocese the next month was inconclusive. The defense has said the priest was too exhausted and stressed from the police interrogation for the test to be effective.
S&M allegation. In 2003, a nun told a diocesan panel that she was sexually abused by Robinson when she was 15. She claimed that another priest paid her father to let Robinson engage her in sadomasochistic acts involving a whip. The same woman also alleged she was raped repeatedly as a girl during satanic rituals led by priests. Authorities have not been able to substantiate or disprove her charges.