PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
JEREMY ROEBUCK, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
POSTED: Friday, March 6, 2015
He ate two cookies – light vanilla coating with cream filling in between – drank a Dr Pepper and counted to himself as the Rev. Andrew McCormick unfastened the 33 buttons on his cassock one by one.
A now 27-year-old man conjured that vivid memory from the witness stand earlier this week, describing the moments before McCormick allegedly sexually assaulted him some 18 years ago.
And as jurors began deliberating the suspended priest’s fate Friday, their decision could come down to what those very specific recollections suggest about the accuser’s story.
For Trevan Borum, McCormick’s lawyer, the accuser’s ability to describe that moment “like a slow-motion Technicolor movie” nearly two decades after the alleged assault occurred was too neat to be believed.
The man “describes the rectory like he was the one who designed it,” Borum told jurors during closing arguments Friday.
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