By Julie Shaw
Philadelphia Daily News
August 6, 2011
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/pennsylvania/127057583.html
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| is said to be ailing. |
AJUDGE YESTERDAY ordered a competency hearing next month for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, the former head of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, under whose leadership sex-abuse crimes occurred.
Prosecutors want Bevilacqua, 88, who led the Archdiocese from 1988 to 2003, to testify on videotape to preserve his testimony.
Bevilacqua is not charged with any crime. But his testimony could be used by prosecutors at next year's trial in the criminal case of Monsignor William Lynn, who was Bevilacqua's secretary for clergy and faces charges of child endangerment and conspiracy for allegedly transferring abusive priests to new parishes.
Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina yesterday set Sept. 12 for the competency hearing and told an attorney for Bevilacqua, Michael O'Mara, to submit Bevilacqua's medical records from the past two years before the hearing.
Lynn, 60, is the first high-ranking U.S. church official to face charges accusing him of concealing priest sexual abuse.
Also facing trial with him are two priests, a former priest and a former Catholic schoolteacher on charges of rape and related offenses involving minor boys.
Patrick Blessington, chief of the district attorney's special-investigations unit, told the judge yesterday he expects a four-month trial with 65 to 75 witnesses.
After accommodating defense attorneys' schedules, the judge set Feb. 21 for jury selection and March 26 for the trial.
In a motion filed with the court earlier this week, Lynn's attorneys, Thomas Bergstrom and Jeff Lindy, said Bevilacqua was not competent to testify, noting that in January, another attorney for the cardinal, William Sasso, told a grand jury investigating the case that he "suffers from prostate cancer, dementia, anxiety" and other ailments.
Bevilacqua was unable to recognize Sasso the last time they met and "requires 24/7 nursing care," Sasso said, according to the motion. As a result of Sasso's testimony, prosecutors at the time did not require the cardinal to testify before the grand jury.
The "strain" of requiring Bevilacqua to testify for the trial "is simply inhumane," Lynn's attorneys wrote.
Bevilacqua had previously testified in 2003 and 2004 before a first Philadelphia grand jury investigating priest sexual abuse.
The charges against the defendants in the upcoming trial are the result of a scathing Feb. 10 report that arose from a second grand-jury investigation into sexual-abuse complaints.
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