Pennsylvania Court Weighs Priest Abuse Case

By Mark Scolforo
Houston Chronicle
November 18, 2014

http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Pa-high-court-weighs-pivotal-church-abuse-case-5899971.php

In this Jan. 6, 2014 file photo, Monsignor William Lynn walks from the criminal justice center after a bail hearing, in Philadelphia. Lynn has been on house arrest in a Philadelphia rectory since his conviction was thrown out on appeal last year. Prosecutors want the state Supreme Court to reinstate it.

A Roman Catholic church official's criminal conviction for child endangerment should be reinstated even though he did not directly supervise any children, a Philadelphia prosecutor argued Tuesday before the state Supreme Court.

The legal dispute in the case of Monsignor William Lynn revolves around a state law that was revised in 2007, and whether the older version of it applies to him.

Lynn, 63, had served about a year and a half of a three- to six-year sentence before the Superior Court, a lower-level appeals court, threw it out late last year.

On Tuesday, Hugh Burns with the Philadelphia district attorney's office argued Lynn's actions allowed a priest, Edward Avery, to have contact with children even after claims of abuse had come to Lynn's attention in his role as the Philadelphia Archdiocese's secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004.

"It wasn't necessary for him to know for certain that Avery would molest a particular victim," Burns argued, saying there was sufficient evidence of Lynn's guilt both as an accomplice and a principal to the crime.

Avery, accused of molesting an altar boy, pleaded guilty of conspiracy to endanger the welfare of children and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. He is currently in state prison.