BishopAccountability.org
	A Holy Hold-Up By Scott Zoback Worcester Magazine August 23, 2007 http://www.worcestermagazine.com/content/view/1822/ The alleged sex-abuse victims of retired Worcester priest John Szantyr are going to have to wait even longer to find out if there is a chance for justice. It's something they're almost getting used to — the next time a court convenes on the case, it will be the 34th court date for the criminal cases that have wound their way through the court system since Szantyr's initial arraignment on charges of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in July, 2003. On Monday, another continuance was granted when the Worcester County District Attorney's Office couldn't find the Szantyr psychiatric evaluation that had been supposedly overnighted to the courthouse by the doctor who performed it on Thursday, Aug. 17. A new status hearing is now scheduled for Sept. 25. The Szantyr case includes multiple criminal and civil charges from several alleged victims. One alleged victim, Mike Chesnis, has publicly claimed that Szantyr molested him in the mid-1980s during Szantyr's time at Our Lady of Czestochowa. Another pending case dates to the same era. But despite the longstanding charges, the case has been bogged down by questions of Szantyr's physical condition and mental competency. As we reported two months ago (WM, City Desk / "A question of competence," June 21), a 2005 letter from Szantyr's primary physician to the court stated that he (Szantyr) "is unable to understand that he is scheduled to begin his trial next week ... due to his deteriorating physical condition and his emotional and mental condition." The letter also cited rapidly advancing Parkinson's disease and strokes. A September 2006 psychiatric evaluation conducted under the authority of Worcester ADA Joseph Reilly III echoed those claims, finding Szantyr mentally incompetent to stand trial. There's a big catch, though: A large number of people believe Szantyr is playing dumb, and is fully capable of standing trial, hence the new psychiatric evaluation that was supposed to be presented this week. "He can't stand trial, and we're seeking another opinion on that," Worcester DA spokesman Tim Connolly told us in June. The unspoken subtext was that they felt a second evaluation would be more reliable. In that June article, we reported that documents showed that Szantyr applied for and received a Connecticut driver's license on March 15, 2007 — six months after he was deemed incompetent. Then there were the photos on Worcestervoice.com, an advocacy site for priest abuse scandal victims, that appeared to show Szantyr at a Massachusetts Turnpike stop in Sturbridge hours after that September 2006 hearing; there was also the May 3, 2007, article in The Boston Herald that claimed a private investigator "spotted the priest twice last week walking without any help, driving on his own to and from church and smoking and yakking on a cell phone." This week, with assurances from the DA's office that the case would move forward, a dozen victims, family members and local supporters were joined in court by other supporters from New York and Connecticut. Mary Jean, proprietor of Worcestervoice.com and a de facto organizer of the group, says, "They all came on the DA's word he was going to expedite it." But, says Jean, DA Joseph Early Jr. admitted no one had actually checked for the evaluation before the hearing. "There's just no excuse," says Jean. "This is not expediting a case." Early says that the file was eventually found on Tuesday morning, and that the "Assistant District Attorney on the case is going to call the defense attorney and ask if we can bring it forward." Early says that he has told his staff to push the case forward as quickly as possible to "give this some closure for the victims." "There was nothing I could do about it before, there is now," he says.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.