Philadelphia Trial of Priest, Ex-teacher Postponed

WPVI
September 4, 2012

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8797246

64-year-old Charles Engelhardt faces charges of rape, indecent sexual assault and other criminal charges. Engelhardt, along with Avery, is accused of assaulting a 10-year-old boy at St. Jerome Parish from 1998 to 1999. If convicted he could face a maximum of 67 years in prison.

The Philadelphia rape trial of a Roman Catholic priest and a former Catholic school teacher has been postponed after a lawyer in the case had a death in the family.

The Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero are due back in court Friday to get a new trial date.

Their case has been severed from the high-profile trial earlier this year of a church official charged over his handling of abuse complaints. The Rev. William Lynn is appealing his landmark child-endangerment conviction while starting a three- to six-year prison term.

Engelhardt and Shero have pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a former altar boy at a Northeast Philadelphia parish in the 1990s.

Their accuser, a troubled 24-year-old policeman's son, is expected to be the key trial witness.