PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Msgr. William J. Lynn seemed to downplay the sex-crime allegations against the Rev. Nicholas V. Cudemo — one of the Archdiocese’s most notorious priests — during a 2001 interview with a Philadelphia police sex crimes officer investigating an assault charge involving against Cudemo.
Officer Denise Holmes told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury this morning that during a 2001 interview with Lynn, the church official said the only allegations of sexual abuse against Cudemo were made in 1991 by three female relatives of the priest.
Holmes asked to meet with Lynn on Jan. 22, 2001, after getting a call from a woman complaining that Cudemo sexually molested her 20 years before when she was a student at the school in the St. Irenaeus parish in Southwest Philadelphia.
Holmes testified that Lynn, then secretary for clergy and the ranking Archdiocesan official responsible for investigating sex-abuse allegations against priests, said he knew nothing of an allegation against Cudemo during his time at St. Irenaeus. Lynn also claimed not to know where Cudemo was living, except for “Florida, maybe.”
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