Grandstanding D.A. Vows To Keep Monsignor Lynn In Jail

By Ralph Cipriano

The D.A.'s credo: Never let the facts get in the way of a good story

for BigTrial.net

He may have won a new trial but he's not getting out of jail anytime soon.

That's the political reality facing Msgr. William J. Lynn. Last week, a panel of three state Superior Court judges overturned Lynn's 2012 conviction for endangering the welfare of a child, and ordered a new trial.

But at least for the next month, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's former secretary for clergy will continue to work as the prison librarian at SCI-Waymart for 19 cents an hour while lawyers back in Philadelphia continue the battle over his case.

Standing in the way of Lynn's release is Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams, and Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina. At a press conference today, the D.A.  announced he was appealing the decision by the panel of judges to the entire state Superior Court. Williams requested an "en banc" re-argument of the case before all nine judges on the appeals court, rather than just a three-judge panel. If he gets turned down, the district attorney promised, he'll appeal to the state Supreme Court, where the D.A. has a winning track record.

The Superior Court previously reversed Lynn's conviction in 2013 and ordered that he be "discharged forthwith." Lynn got out of jail, but Judge Sarmina placed him under house arrest. The D.A. appealed. The state Supreme Court then reversed the reversal and, at the D.A.'s request, Judge Sarmina promptly sent Lynn back to jail.

At his press conference today, D.A. Williams engaged in some of his usual grandstanding. He managed to screw up the facts of the case and use his own daughters as political props, so he could do more grandstanding. In Philadelphia, this lame act is what passes for the city's top prosecutor.

"One in four women and one in six men are sexually abused before the age of eighteen," Williams began his press conference. "And 90 percent of those who are sexually assaulted know their attacker."

Going by the D.A.'s math, if there are approximately 100,000 or so male victims of sex abuse wandering the streets of our city, couldn't the D.A. have found somebody who had actually been sexually assaulted by a priest rather than a fraud like Billy Doe?

"The victim in this case knew his attacker and Msgr. William Lynn covered up Father [Edward V.] Avery's record," Williams continued. "My office is committed to ensuring the safety of all the citizens of Philadelphia and today, specifically the victim of Msgr. William Lynn. Simply put, we will continue to use all of my office's resources to ensure that the Defendant Lynn remains in state custody as ordered by Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina."

The panel of state Superior Court panel of judges overturned Lynn's conviction because they found that Judge Sarmina had abused her discretion by allowing into evidence 21 supplemental cases of sex abuse dating back to 1948, three years before the 64-year-old Lynn was born.

But Williams argued that Judge Sarmina  had "properly admitted into evidence 'other bad acts' . . . to show a pattern and practice of concealment and protection of child sexual-predator priests" by Lynn. 

"The same evidence also established the defendant's expert knowledge of the characteristics of pedophiles," Williams argued. The evidence introduced by the prosecution at trial "showed the Philadelphia jury and the world that the defendant's handling of Father [Edward V.] Avery was completely typical of his handling of other similar predator priests," the district attorney said, sounding drunk on his own press clippings. "The defendant knew just how dangerous such priests were."

"I have three daughters . . . "

"We knew Msgr. Lynn's behavior," Williams said. "We knew how he handled those cases." Lynn, the D.A. said, was "more worried about the treasury of the church, and again forgetting that his treasury is people. And so to protect the bank account [he] didn't even  call the police; didn't even call the parents."

I don't go to a lot of press conferences held by D.A. Williams. [He no longer invites me]. But for the third time at one of those press conferences about the Lynn case, I've heard Williams use his own daughters to make a political point with reporters, by saying how upset he would be if his daughters were molested or raped.

Gee, thanks Dad.

"I have three daughters," Williams said today. "If a priest sexually assaulted my daughter I would at the very least [expect] my church to call me."

"They didn't do that," Williams said. "What did they do? They sent Father Avery to St. Jerome's. Didn't tell the priest there, didn't tell the nun that the guy they put in charge of the CYO is a pedophile. So we had to show all these other acts . .  to show Msgr. Lynn knew how dangerous it was to put a pedophile into a school with children. so we had to show all those bad acts."

The district attorney described Lynn as somebody who "shuffled pedophile priests from one parish to another unsuspecting parish."

Where to begin. A pedophile is someone sexually attracted to children, generally age 11 or younger. Lynn knew about a prior victim of Avery's who testified at the monsignor's criminal trial in 2012. The  victim, a 49-year-old doctor, testified that when he was 15 years old he was fondled by Avery. When he was 19, the victim testified, he consented to accompany Avery on a ski trip where he was molested.

A pedophile doesn't target 15 year-olds and 19 year-olds. And, for anybody who cares about the facts of the case, Avery never ran the CYO.

"It's all wrong," Thomas A. Bergstrom, Lynn's defense lawyer, said about the D.A.'s oratory. "The premise to the whole thing is his assertion that Avery is a pedophile, which he wasn't." Bergstrom also objected to Williams saying that Lynn "transferred pedophile priests, which he didn't."

"Lynn didn't have the power to transfer and assign priests," Bergstrom said. This was the evidence presented at trial. The only official in the archdiocese who had that kind of power was Lynn's boss, the late Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua.

"So they just lie about things and everything flows from that," Bergstrom complained about the D.A. "He [Williams] has done that all along. He's beating a drum but unfortunately the facts don't support him. But his constituency doesn't care about that."

Avery didn't run the CYO at St. Jerome's, Bergstrom said What he did do occasionally, at the request of the church pastor, was to hear confessions from children in a group setting at the church, with parents and priests nearby. Avery also was an occasional disc jockey at St. Jerome's, for weddings, adult dances and one high school dance.

At his press conference, D.A. Williams conceded that Lynn might be tried again.

"There could be a new trial," Williams said. "And if so, we're fully committed to empaneling a jury and going to trial again."

Meanwhile, while the appeals continue, "We will fight to keep Msgr. Lynn in state custody where he belongs," Williams said. The D.A. said he wanted to ensure that Lynn stays in jail so "that he doesn't have an opportunity to be reassigning priests in the future."

It's really hard to believe that the archdiocese would ever be dumb enough to put Msgr. Lynn back in his old job as secretary for the clergy, a position he held from 1992 to 2004. Can't imagine the lawyers and the insurance company would sign off on that one.

But the D.A. was on a roll. As far as Seth Williams is concerned, the appeals in the Lynn case can go on forever. As long as he gets to hold more press conferences and make more speeches.

Bergstrom is right. The facts don't matter at all to our crusading D.A.

"The guy they put in charge of the CYO is a pedophile . . . "

I've had my own experience. I wrote a story three years ago about 20 factual errors that I found in the D.A.'s 2011 grand jury report on the church.

The mistakes were brazen rewrites of grand jury testimony to fit the D.A.'s own story line.

A 14-year-old boy got in bed with a priest. Both males had their boxer shorts on. But 11 times in the grand jury report, the D.A. wrote that the priest, Father James J. Brennan, anally raped 14-year-old Mark Bukowski. Even though Bukowski testified at the grand jury, and at trial, that it never happened. The proof was at trial, when Father Brennan was only charged with attempted rape, for what his lawyer described as a "savage spooning."

Billy Doe's mother testified to the grand jury that her son underwent a drastic personality change in high school. But that didn't fit the D.A.'s story line. So the D.A. simply rewrote the mother's testimony to say that her son's drastic personality change happened in grade school, when little Billy supposedly was raped by Father Avery, as well as another priest, and a school teacher.

After I found the factual errors, I wrote up a list of questions and sent it over to the D.A.'s office. His response: stonewalling. For three years, he's refused to answer those questions and more.

That same grand jury report, complete with all 20 factual errors, remains online today at the D.A.'s website with all of its original lies intact.

This D.A. doesn't give a damn about facts. Not when he can invent his own facts. And have the rest of the media pass it along as gospel.