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	Priest's Lawyer Calls Rape Accuser a Liar UPI March 14, 2011 http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/03/14/Priests-lawyer-calls-rape-accuser-a-liar/UPI-97021300119758/ A former altar boy accusing a Philadelphia Catholic priest of rape is a convicted liar and felon, the priest's lawyer says. Richard DeSipio, attorney for the Rev. James Brennan, tells the Philadelphia Daily News he will argue in a court hearing Monday that his client deserves a preliminary hearing to cross-examine his accuser, now 29. "A witness must give legally competent evidence, and I don't think he can do that," DeSipio said. "Their witness is in prison in Bucks County for stealing his sister's credit card and using it. He's a convicted liar." Court records confirm those assertions. The Philadelphia district attorney wants Judge Renee Hughes to skip the preliminary hearing, citing a grand jury report that accuses Brennan of raping a boy, then 14, in 1996 at the priest's home. The Rev. Charles Engelhardt, defrocked priest Edward Avery and former Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero are also due at Monday's hearing to face charges of raping a 10-year-old boy from 1998 through 2000. Monsignor William Lynn, former secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is charged with conspiracy and endangering children in an alleged coverup. The New York Times reports he is the highest-ranking Catholic cleric ever to face such criminal counts.
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