PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Grand Forks Herald
By MARYCLAIRE DALE Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA
Exceeding sentencing guidelines, a judge on Wednesday handed down prison terms of at least six years to a Roman Catholic priest and a former teacher in a sex-abuse case that brought down a Philadelphia church official.
The Rev. Charles Engelhardt of Wynnewood and Bernard Shero of Levittown maintained their innocence, and the judge threw out the most serious conviction against Engelhardt for lack of evidence.
Still, Engelhardt, a 66-year-old Oblate who had not previously been accused of abusing children, was sentenced to six to 12 years in prison. And Shero, convicted of rape, was sentenced to eight to 16 years.
“I’ve accepted this injustice and I will continue to do so until it is righted, because I believe it will be righted,” said Engelhardt, who has lost 50 pounds since the accusation surfaced in 2009. “I had no interaction with (the accuser) in any way.”
Shero, also speaking in court for the first time, said his visual impairments and awkwardness made him an easy target. He said he never had any problems with his accuser in his sixth-grade class at St. Jerome’s Parish school in the late 1990s. The accuser was not in court but was represented by his parents _ a nurse and policeman who struggled for years with their son’s severe heroin addiction.
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