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

Philadelphia prosecutors said today will retry James J. Brennan, the former Archdiocese of Philadelphia parish priest who was accused of attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

"The Commonwealth will be retrying the case," Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington told Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina.

Brennan, 48, was one of two defendants in the unprecedented trial about clergy-sex abuse in the archdiocese. But his case ended in a mistrial when the jury, after 13 days of deliberations, said it couldn't agree on verdicts in the attempted rape and child endangerment charges against him. Sarmina had earlier dismissed a separate conspiracy count.

Defense lawyer William J. Brennan said he and his client were disappointed with the decision, particularly after so much time and effort was spent on the first trial.

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

The retrial date was not yet set.

Brennan seemed at times a footnote in the landmark trial, because district attorneys spent much of the three-month proceeding presenting evidence against his codefendant, Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy to Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua.

Lynn was convicted of a single count of child endangerment. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday.

But the two days that Brennan's accuser spent on the witness stand were among the most explosive at the trial.

The alleged victim, now 30, repeatedly 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. 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.

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.

The defense 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 him "a serial confabulator" whose criminal record includes making false statements to police.

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

The outcome of that internal church proceeding has never been made public. Court records that became available after his criminal trial suggest that Brennan has been ordered to no longer call or present himself as a priest.

Blessington, the prosecutor, told the judge he could not be available for a retrial until February.

Sarmina, a homicide trial judge, said she was unsure if she would preside at the retrial.

Contact: jmartin@phillynews.com