MASSACHUSETTS
Berkshire Eagle
By Andrew Amelinckx, Berkshire Eagle Staff
berkshireeagle.com
Posted: 04/05/2013
BOSTON — A former Roman Catholic priest who was convicted of raping two altar boys in Berkshire County in the 1980s was denied a new trial by a Massachusetts Appeals Court this week.
Gary Mercure, 65, the former pastor at Our Lady of The Annunciation Parish in Queensbury, N.Y., was convicted in February 2011 in Berkshire Superior Court of three counts of rape of a child by force and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child under age 14. He is serving a 20- to 25-year prison sentence.
In the appeal, Mercure’s lawyer argued that the jury had been unduly prejudiced after being allowed to hear testimony concerning uncharged sex crimes involving the two victims and six others that allegedly occurred when they were altar boys in his parish in New York.
The statute of limitations prevented criminal charges being brought in that state.
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