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	Seven Years before Father Avery Abused Billy, Archdiocese Officials Learned He Had Philadelphia Grand Jury Presentment February 13, 2011 http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/clergyAbuse2-finalPresentment.pdf [pdf] Seven years before Father Avery abused Billy, Msgr. Lynn, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, and other Archdiocese officials learned that the priest had molested another altar boy. "James" (not his real name) was a 29-year-old medical student, with a wife and child, when he wrote to the Archdiocese in the spring of 1992 to report that Father Avery had abused him in the 1970s and 1980s. He enclosed a copy of a letter that he had just sent to Father Avery, in which he told the abusive priest: I've been carrying a burden for all these years that is not justly mine to bear. . . . It all began when I was a young boy and you came to my church. I thought you were funny and you let me help you at dances and other functions. You made me feel valued, included, and special. I trusted, respected, and loved you, and you taught me many things about construction, driving, and gave me my first beer. I truly believed you had my best interest at heart, that you cared about me in a fatherly way. Then one night after I had helped you at a dance and had quite a lot to drink I awoke to find your hand on my crotch. I was terrified. . . . I've never told you until now because I've been afraid and I've always blamed myself for what happened. I always thought there was something I did or said or a way I acted that made you think it was alright to do what you did. I would think that you've been such a good friend to me that maybe these activities were alright. I knew one thing, I didn't want you to touch me that way and I didn't want sex with you or any other man. I was determined after that night that I would never be hurt by you again. I would always be safe from that kind of intrusion. I became distant and depressed, my ability to trust men shattered. I am only now undergoing the long recovery process from wounds I suffered at your hands. I have let too much of my life be controlled by this terrible wrong you committed. YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO HURT ME THE WAY YOU DID. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO HURT ANYONE ELSE THIS WAY. I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME. ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY IN THIS MATTER IS YOURS. I WILL NO LONGER CARRY THIS BURDEN FOR YOU. MY ONLY RESPONSIBILITY IS TO GOD, MYSELF, AND FAMILY. James told Msgr. Lynn that he sought neither money nor scandal. He merely wanted to make sure that Father Avery was not still a threat to others. Archdiocese documents record that, on September 28, 1992, Msgr. Lynn and his assistant, Father Joseph R. Cistone, who is now the Bishop of Saginaw, Michigan,interviewed James. James told them that he had met Father Avery in 1976, when he was an altar boy and the priest was assistant pastor at Saint Philip Neri Parish in East Greenville. Father Avery would take James and other altar boys to his beach house in North Wildwood and give them alcohol. Father Avery gave James his first drink at age 12. James told Msgr. Lynn and Father Cistone that Father Avery first touched him on an overnight with a group of altar boys at the priest's house on the Jersey Shore. Father Avery had entered the loft where the boys were sleeping, and had "wrestled" with them and "tickled" them. Several times, James said, Father Avery put his hand on James's crotch. In September 1978, Father Avery was transferred abruptly to Saint Agatha-Saint James Parish in Philadelphia. James's mother, Mary, described how, "One Sunday Father Avery was saying Mass and that Wednesday he was gone, transferred for some unknown reason." After his transfer, Father Avery, who moonlighted as a disc jockey at bars, weddings, and parties, continued to invite James to assist him on disc jockey jobs. During James's freshman year in high school, he took the boy to Smokey Joe's, a bar on the University of Pennsylvania campus. There, the boy and the priest were served large amounts of alcohol. James told Msgr. Lynn that, afterwards, the priest took him back to his rectory for the night. When the then-15-year-old awoke, he was in Father Avery's bed with the priest, and Father Avery had his hand on James's genitals. According to Archdiocese documents, James related to Msgr. Lynn a similar incident that occurred on a ski trip to Vermont when James was 18 years old. Again, Father Avery slept in the same bed with James and fondled the boy's genitals. Msgr. Lynn and Father Cistone next interviewed Father Avery. According to Archdiocese records of the meeting, Father Avery told them that he was drunk the night of the Smokey Joe's incident – as was the 15-year-old – and did not recall much. He acknowledged that it "could be" that he did what was alleged, but claimed that he could not remember. He told Msgr. Lynn that if he touched James in Vermont while sleeping in the same bed, it was "strictly accidental." He would later admit to a District Attorney's Office detective, however, that he did fondle James's genitals on the Vermont trip.
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