PHILADELPHIA (PA)
GlobalPost
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Attorneys for the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic church official convicted in a child sex abuse scandal asked an appeals court on Tuesday to overturn the ruling because the law he was prosecuted under was not in place at the time of his crimes.
An attorney for Monsignor William Lynn said the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office acknowledged in its brief to the court that Lynn’s conviction was “ex post facto,” Latin for after the fact.
“They have to use the new statute in order to have this court confirm his conviction,” attorney Thomas Bergstrom told a three-judge Pennsylvania Superior Court panel.
The child endangerment statute in effect when Lynn was secretary of clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, from 1994 to 2004, applied to “a parent, guardian or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age.”
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