Conviction Reversed in Clergy Sex-abuse Case

Detroit Free Press
December 26, 2013

http://www.freep.com/article/20131226/NEWS07/312260122/Conviction-reversed-clergy-sex-abuse-case

A Catholic Church official will have to fight for bail in Philadelphia after his novel conviction in the priest-abuse scandal was thrown out.

Msgr. William Lynn has served 18 months in prison after a jury found he endangered a boy by helping protect a predator priest. But an appeals court overturned the child endangerment conviction Thursday, saying Lynn was not legally responsible for the boy’s welfare.

Lynn’s lawyers hoped the 62-year-old would go free, but the Superior Court instead sent the bail issue back to the trial court.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams pledged to oppose bail and appeal the ruling.

In dismissing the landmark criminal case, a three-judge Superior Court panel in Pennsylvania unanimously rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Lynn supervised the welfare of any particular child.

“He’s been in prison 18 months for a crime he didn’t commit and couldn’t commit under the law,” said Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom. “It’s incredible what happened to this man.”

Lynn is serving a three- to six-year prison sentence after his child-endangerment conviction last year.

Prosecutors had argued at trial that Lynn reassigned predators to new parishes in Philadelphia while he was the archdiocese’s secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004.

Lynn’s conviction relates to the case of Edward Avery, a priest who was found to have abused a child in 1998 after such a transfer.

Lynn’s attorneys long have contended the state’s child-endangerment law at the time applied only to parents and caregivers, not supervisors like Lynn.

Williams said he strongly disagrees with the state Superior Court panel.

“Because we will be appealing, the conviction still stands for now, and the defendant cannot be lawfully released until the end of the process,” Williams said in a statement.

Lynn’s supporters say he was made a scapegoat for the church’s sins, including two cardinals who were never charged.