PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter
Brian Roewe | Jan. 6, 2014 NCR Today
Following his first weekend as a free man in 18 months, Msgr. William J. Lynn returned to a Philadelphia courtroom Monday to learn the terms of his release.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina informed Lynn that he must wear an electronic monitor as part of his parole, as well as remain in the area and report weekly to a probation officer, or face a return to prison.
The noticeably slimmer, 62-year-old monsignor (several media reports indicated he lost 80 pounds while serving his sentence) actually left a Philadelphia prison Friday morning. A Superior Court decision Dec. 26 overturned the June 2012 ruling that convicted him on one count of child endangerment and sentenced him to three to six years in prison. Lynn, the Philadelphia archdiocese’s secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, was the first U.S. church official convicted for his handling of abuse claims.
In an unanimous, 43-page decision, the three-judge panel ruled that a 2007 amendment to the state’s endangerment of the welfare of a child, or EWOC, law did not apply to Lynn, and that the interpretation of the law by Sarmina, who presided over the three-month trial, was “fundamentally flawed.”
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