PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Miami Herald
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHILADELPHIA — A church official who recently won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal was released from custody Friday, and the city’s Roman Catholic archbishop defended the decision to use church funds to help with bail.
Monsignor William Lynn was staying at an undisclosed location in Philadelphia after being processed at a city jail and being fitted with an electronic monitoring device Friday morning, defense attorney Thomas Bergstrom said. He was due in court Monday for a bail hearing.
Lynn, who left a state prison on Thursday after 18 months behind bars, is the first U.S. church official to have been charged for hiding complaints that priests were molesting children.
City prosecutors had charged him with felony child endangerment, but the state Superior Court ruled that the law that existed at the time did not cover people who did not directly supervise children.
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