Prosecutors to Retry Priest in Abuse Case

By John P. Martin
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 23, 2012

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120723_Prosecutors_to_retry_priest_in_abuse_case.html

Defense attorney Jeff Lindy, representing Monsignor William Lynn, speaks with the media outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia on Thursday morning, July 5, 2012. A brief hearing was held before the judge to request Lynn be released from prison until sentencing. Lynn was found guilty of one count of child endangerment for covering up alleged abused by Catholic priests. (Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer)

Philadelphia prosecutors said Monday they planned to retry James J. Brennan, the former Archdiocese of Philadelphia parish priest accused to trying to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

"James Brennan used his position as a priest to prey upon and victimize this young man," District Attorney Seth Williams said. "It is extremely important that Brennan be held accountable for his crime, not just for his victim but for all victims of sexual abuse."

Brennan, 48, was one of two defendants in the unprecedented trial about clergy-sex abuse in the archdiocese.

Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina declared a mistrial in Brennan's case when jurors deliberated 13 days but couldn't reach verdicts on attempted rape and endangerment charges against him.

Defense lawyer William J. Brennan said he and his client were disappointed with the prosecutors' decision, particularly after so much time and effort was spent on the first trial. James Brennan was initially charged in February 2011.

"It's puzzling to me that the Commonwealth feels that there is a need to go forward," said his lawyer, who is unrelated to the client.

James Brennan seemed at times a footnote in the landmark case, because district attorneys spent most of the three-month trial presenting evidence against his codefendant, Msgr. William J. Lynn.

Lynn, the former secretary for clergy to Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, was convicted of a single count of child endangerment. He faces sentencing on Tuesday.

The two days that Brennan's accuser testified were among the most explosive at the trial.

Brennan had become friendly with the boy and his family when the priest was an assistant pastor at St. Andrew Church in Newtown, Bucks County, in the early 1990s.

The alleged victim, now 30, battled with Brennan's lawyer, broke down on the stand and slung accusations at the defendant, a priest he said he once admired like an uncle.

The accuser said that during an overnight visit to the Brennan's apartment in 1996, the priest showed him online pornography, masturbated in front of him, talked about sex and shared a bed with him. He said he was terrified and forever traumatized as Brennan, wearing boxer shorts, pulled him close in bed and pressed his private parts against the boy.

William Brennan, the lawyer, accused the witness of concocting the claim in a bid to win a payout from the church and excuse a decade of drug-use and petty crime. In court papers, he called the priest's accuser "a serial confabulator" whose criminal record includes making false statements to police.

One juror, Taleah Grimmage, said in an interview after the trial that the panel was evenly split over whether Brennan endangered the 14-year-old and, by extension, other minors during his tenure as a parish priest.

All but one juror agreed prosecutors did not prove Brennan was guilty of attempted rape, Grimmage said, at least as the crime had been defined for them.

"We went around the room and we said, I wish it was groping, it was molesting, I wish it was something else," Grimmage told The Inquirer last week.

According to William Brennan, the Commonwealth can't alter the charges but will have to retry his client on the identical charges.

This time, the trial should take a week or less, he said, because jurors won't have to sit through decades of clergy-sex abuse allegations, as they did in Lynn's case.

"I think we were unfairly hampered by having to be tried with the codefendant," William Brennan said.

James Brennan never took the witness stand at his trial, but jurors heard testimony that he and his accuser gave during a 2008 confidential church proceeding on the accusations.

The outcome of that canonical trial has not been made public. Court records that became available after the criminal trial suggest that the church has ordered Brennan to stop calling or presenting himself as a priest.

The judge scheduled an Aug. 14 status conference to discuss potential trial dates. Sarmina, who typically hears homicide cases, said she was unsure if she would preside at the retrial.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington said he would not be available for a trial until February.