Court overturns conviction of Philadelphia priest jailed in landmark case

December 27, 2013

In a unanimous ruling, a Pennsylvania appellate court has overturned the 2012 conviction of Msgr. William Lynn, who served as the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s vicar of clergy from 1992 to 2004.

Msgr. Lynn had been the highest-ranking official in the Church in America to be jailed, not for abusing children but for allegedly failing to take action against abusers.

But the Pennsylvania court found that “the state’s child-endangerment law at the time of Lynn's conviction applied to parents and caregivers but did not extend to institutional supervisors,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“When Monsignor Lynn's sentence was announced last summer, the Archdiocese reemphasized that it has changed dramatically since the events over ten years ago that were at the center of the trial and reaffirmed that dramatic steps have been taken to ensure that all young people in our care find a safe and nurturing environment,” the archdiocese said in a public statement responding to the court's ruling. “It also expressed a hope that the nature of the sentence imposed on Monsignor Lynn would be objectively reviewed. That has happened.”

“The decision by the Superior Court to overturn this conviction does not and will not alter the Church's commitment to assist and support the survivors of sexual abuse on their journey toward healing or our dedicated efforts to ensure that all young people in our care are safe,” the statement continued.

After the archdiocese received a report in 1992 that Father Edward Avery had abused a minor in the late 1970s, Msgr. Lynn sent him to a treatment center and later assigned Avery to another parish. Cardinal Justin Rigali, who served as Archbishop of Philadelphia from 2003 to 2011, deemed the 1992 allegation credible in 2003, and Avery was subsequently laicized.

Avery -- along with another priest and a school teacher -- was subsequently accused of abusing a minor in his new assignment. “The accuser, now a gaunt young man, has battled heroin abuse since his teens and still has a drug case pending,” the Associated Press later reported. “And details of his story changed frequently over the years, even about whether [the teacher] raped him in the classroom or in a parked car.”

Avery later pleaded guilty to abusing the accuser and began to serve a prison sentence of 2-1/2 to five years in March 2012. Following Avery’s guilty plea, Msgr. Lynn was convicted in June 2012 of endangering the welfare of a child and sentenced to three to six years in prison.

When Avery took the stand in January 2013 in the trial of the teacher and the other priest, however, he recanted his guilty plea, said he did not know the accuser, and said that he had accepted a plea agreement to avoid a prison sentence of up to 60 years. The teacher, Bernard Shero, was later sentenced to eight to 16 years in prison, and the priest, Father Charles Engelhardt, was sentenced to six to 12 years.

 

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Further information:

• Monsignor William Lynn conviction overturned by Pa. court; D.A. 'most likely' to appeal (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Pa. court reverses church official's conviction (AP)
• Archdiocese Responds to Superior Court Ruling Regarding Sentence of Monsignor William J. Lynn (Archdiocese of Philadelphia)
• Msgr. Lynn's Conviction Reversed On Child Endangerment Statute (BigTrial.net)
• Philadelphia cleric wrongly convicted in landmark abuse case, says secular reporter (CWN, 4/30)
• Philadelphia priest, schoolteacher convicted of abuse in case related to clergy vicar’s conviction (CWN, 1/31)
• Convicted Philadelphia priest appeals no-bail decision pending appeal (CWN, 8/16/12)