Lead Detective In "Billy Doe" Case Didn't Believe Billy

Former ADA Mariana Sorensen [left] 

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The lead detective in the "Billy Doe" sex abuse case didn't find the former altar boy credible after repeatedly confronting him over numerous factual discrepancies in his many conflicting stories.

And when Detective Joseph Walsh voiced his doubts about the D.A.'s star witness to a top prosecutor, she didn't want to hear about it.

"You're damaging my case, you're hurting my case," is what Thomas A. Bergstrom, a lawyer for Msgr. William J. Lynn, claimed that former Assistant District Attorney Mariana Sorensen said about the star witness whose testimony sent three priests and a former Catholic school teacher to jail.

"You can't turn a blind eye to that," Bergstrom said when he asked Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright to invoke the ultimate penalty for prosecutorial misconduct, namely dismissing a retrial of the criminal case against Msgr. Lynn scheduled to begin May 30th.

During a three-hour pre-trial hearing today, Bergstrom and Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington battled over what Walsh and Sorensen allegedly said to each other years ago behind closed doors in the D.A.'s office. Meanwhile, the detective, now retired, was outside the courtroom pacing the hallway. 

Blessington told the judge that Sorensen denied ever saying anything about hurting her case to Walsh. That prompted Bergstrom to say that the judge now had a reason to hold a hearing. So that Bergstrom could "cross-examine Mariana Sorensen and see who's telling the truth."

The judge obliged by setting a 2 p.m. hearing for next Wednesday at which time former Detective Walsh, and presumably former ADA Sorensen, will testify. It would be a fitting climax to a bizarre seven-year old sex abuse case that now qualifies as a classic fake news story.

While he's got Sorensen on the witness stand under oath, Bergstrom should ask her about the 20 factual mistakes in the 2011 grand jury report that Sorensen allegedly wrote, where the sworn testimony of grand jury witnesses was blatantly rewritten to fit bogus and since disproven story lines cooked up by the D.A.'s office under Seth Williams.

"Billy Doe" is a grand jury's pseudonym for Danny Gallagher, a 28-year-old former altar boy who claimed that back during the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 school years at St. Jerome's parish in Northeast Philadelphia, when Gallagher was 10 and 11 years old, he was repeatedly raped in three separate attacks by two priests and a school teacher.

 At a 2012 trial, Msgr. Lynn was convicted by a jury of one count of endangering the welfare of a child, namely Gallagher, by allowing former priest Edward V. Avery to return to ministry and allegedly rape the altar boy.

Avery, now serving 2 1/2 to 5 years in prison for raping Gallagher, pleaded guilty on the eve of a 2012 trial when he was a co-defendant with Lynn. But Avery ultimately recanted his plea bargain, testifying in court a year later hat he had never even met Gallagher. And that the only reason he had pleaded guilty was that he was 69 years old at the time, facing a 13 1/2 to 27 years sentence, and didn't want to die in jail.

The other defendants in the case include Bernard Shero, Gallagher's former homeroom teacher, who's doing 8 to 16 years in prison. At the pre-trial hearing today, Jeff Ogren, Shero's appeals lawyer, was sitting with Detective Walsh.

Another defendant, the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, died in prison back in 2014 after serving nearly two years of a 6 to 12 year sentence for allegedly abusing Gallagher.

The Defendant

The other defendant is Msgr. Lynn, convicted in 2012 of endangering the welfare of a child, namely Gallagher. As demonstrated many times on this blog, however, there is simply no reason to believe Danny Gallagher.

First, he told several fantastic and completely contradictory stories to authorities. Then, his voluminous medical records from some 28 drug clinics, doctors and rehab hospitals revealed that before Gallagher claimed to have been raped at 10 and 11 by two priests and the school teacher, he had falsely claimed he was: molested at 6 by a friend; sexually abused at 6 by a neighbor; sexually assaulted at 7 by a teacher; molested at 8 or 9 by a friend; and sexually assaulted at 9 by a 14-year-old.

Gallagher also falsely claimed to his doctors to be a professional surfer and a paramedic.

A forensic psychiatrist who interviewed Gallagher for nearly three hours in 2015 concluded that Gallagher had lied and provided unreliable information about his past drug abuse, and alleged sex abuse. Gallagher also flunked a personality test.

The forensic psychiatrist who examined him concluded that Gallagher was manipulative, paranoid, passive-aggressive and delusional. That's in addition to being a former heroin addict with six arrests for drugs and retail theft under his belt, including one bust where he was caught red-handed with 56 bags of heroin stuffed into his pants.

In a civil deposition, when Gallagher was quizzed about the many contradictions in his personal history and past claims of sex abuse, Gallagher responded by stating he couldn't remember more than 130 times. 

In spite of his complete lack of credibility, however, Charles J. Chaput, the Catholic archbishop of Philadelphia, ultimately rolled over in a  civil suit and gave Gallagher what was supposed to be a confidential cash settlement of $5 million.

That's not the only outrage committed in Gallagher's name.

Indeed, The Philadelphia Inquirer, after seven years, still pretends that Gallagher is a sex abuse "victim" and has yet to print his real name. Amazingly, the Inky, after continuously and publicly hanging the defendants out to dry for seven years, still calls him Billy Doe in print. Even though Gallagher has been outed on this blog for years, as well as on the cover of Newsweek, the front page of National Catholic Reporter, and in the Northeast Times.

But at the Inky, Danny Gallagher is still cloaked in the sainted anonymity of a presumed victim of sex abuse.

Meanwhile, the lead defendant in the case has already been punished.

Lynn, who is facing a retrial of his chid endangerment case, served 33 months of his minimum 3 to 6 year sentence, plus 18 months of house arrest. While the conviction of Lynn, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's former secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, was overturned twice on appeals.

The first time Lynn's conviction was overturned, the state Superior Court ruled that the state's original child endangerment law did not apply to Lynn, an opinion shared in print by former District Attorney Lynne Abraham as well as a 2005 grand jury report.

The second time the case was overturned, the state Superior Court ruled that the trial judge, M. Teresa Sarmina, unfairly put the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on trial during the Lynn case, by admitting as evidence 21 supplemental cases of sex abuse that didn't involve the monsignor, dating back to 1948, three years before the 66-year-old Lynn was born.

At the pre-trial hearing today in the Lynn retrial, the lawyers sparred over the D.A.'s plans to introduce at the retrial some 12 supplemental cases of sex abuse. Bergstrom, however, argued to the judge that all 12 cases should not be admitted as evidence because they had nothing to do with Lynn.

Bergstrom told the judge that Detective Walsh decided  back in 2012 that Gallagher wasn't a credible witness when he was doing trial prep sessions before Lynn's first trial. One of those sessions, Bergstrom told the judge, lasted three to four hours.

The $5 Million Man

During pre-trial prep, Bergstrom told the judge, "Walsh confronted Gallagher with numerous contradictions in his version of the events involving Avery, Engelhardt, and Shero."

"Faced with this inconsistencies/contradictions, Gallagher either provided no explanation [remained silent] or offered that he was high on drugs," Bergstrom said.

Bergstrom then highlighted five of those factual discrepancies that Walsh confronted Gallagher over, including:

--Gallagher claimed that he was a member of the church's bell choir maintenance crew during fifth grade when Avery began abusing him. But "from his investigation, Walsh knew that Gallagher was not in the bell crew in fifth grade, as only eighth grade boys made up the bell crew," Bergstrom said. [This fact was borne out at trial by Catholic school yearbooks as well as the testimony of several teachers].

-- Gallagher claimed that when he served as an altar boy at a 6:15 Mass in 1998, he "was assaulted over the course of four to five hours" in the sacristy by Father Engelhardt, who had supposedly locked all the doors and taken off all his clothes. However, Walsh "knew from his investigation that Gallagher did not serve" any 6:15 a.m. Mass during 1998, because of the meticulous calendars kept by his mother that tracked all the church dates for her two altar boy sons, Danny Gallagher and his older brother, James. Danny Gallagher also claimed that he walked to church from his home after the attack by Engelhardt. But during Walsh's investigation, Gallagher's older brother told the detective that his parents always drove him and his brother to and from Mass, even though they lived less than a mile from the church. Walsh also knew that an assault after Mass in the sacristy wasn't possible because of the presence of a sexton, who was usually the last person to leave and lock up the church after Mass.

-- Gallagher claimed that he was assaulted by Avery following a funeral Mass that the priest and altar boy allegedly served at. But Walsh knew from his review of church records that Avery had never officiated at a funeral Mass during the year that Gallagher claimed he was assaulted.

-- Gallagher claimed he was high on drugs when he first reported his alleged abuse to a drug counselor and an archdiocese social worker in 2009, and that's why he told fantastic and bloody stories of violent sex abuse and vicious threats and beatings by his assailants, all since recanted. But Walsh knew from his investigation that both the drug counselor and the archdiocese social worker had said that Gallagher wasn't high on drugs. Indeed, the social worker interviewed Gallagher moments after Gallagher's father, a Philadelphia police sergeant, had driven his son home from a drug clinic.

-- Gallagher claimed that he would switch altar boy assignments with other altar boys when he saw a list posted in the church to avoid Avery and Engelhardt after they allegedly raped him. But Walsh knew from his investigation that altar boy Mass schedules "did not contain the names of the priests." And that the list of priests serving Mass was not posted in the church, but in the rectory, where only the priests could see it.

That's why, Bergstrom said, Walsh "does not believe Danny Gallagher," because Gallagher "wasn't credible." But when Walsh reported his doubts to Sorensen, she replied, "You're hurting my case," or "You're damaging my case," Bergstrom told the judge.

None of the particulars of Walsh's repeated questioning of Gallagher, nor Gallagher's responses [or lack thereof] were ever reported to the defense, Bergstrom told the judge. Had they been, the defense would have cross-examined Detective Walsh as a witness at Lynn's first trial, Bergstrom said.

The defense also didn't know about Sorensen's lack of interest in Danny Gallagher's lack of credibility, Bergstrom said.

"What Walsh was telling Sorensen," Bergstrom said, was that the prosecution's "primary and only witness" wasn't credible. And that Sorensen "had to know or should have known," Bergstrom said, that "she had every reason to believe that he [Danny Gallagher] is lying."

"Putting a witness on trial" who you know is likely to lie is against the code of ethics for an officer of the court, Bergstrom said. "He is the only damn witness in this case," Bergstrom said about Gallagher. And  Sorensen had to know that "her primary witness is not credible."

ADA Pat Blessington

"If the prosecution knows that this witness is likely to lie," Bergstrom told the judge, "They've got a serious problem."

The problem was that Detective Walsh knew that Danny Gallagher's stories were "incredible," Bergstrom said. And without Danny Gallagher, Bergstrom said, "there is no case" against Msgr. Lynn.

When it was his turn to speak, Assistant District Attorney Blessington told the judge that Bergstrom had misstated the facts of the case.

Lynn was accused of endangering the welfare of a child, Blessington reminded the judge. By placing abusive priests back in service, Blessington said, the crime of child endangerment was committed before "Avery ever laid eyes on Danny Gallagher."

Lynn knew as far back as 1992 that Ed Avery was abusive to children, Blessington said. At the clinic where Avery was evaluated, they told Lynn to keep Avery away from adolescents, Blessington said.

"The crime is putting a time bomb out there," Blessington told the judge about Lynn's handling of Avery. "It doesn't have to go off." But in his next breath, Blessington contended that Gallagher had been "horribly abused."

Blessington also pointed out that at Lynn's first trial, the defendant testified that he only knew of one child who had been abused by a priest under Lynn's supervision, and stated that victim was Danny Gallagher. Lynn also stated at the trial that he was sorry that Gallagher was abused, Blessington said.

"His own client admitted it," Blessington yelled at Bergstrom. During today's hearing, Blessington conceded that he may have gotten too emotional about the Lynn case, which he prosecuted the first time. At today's hearing, while he talked, the prosecutor's hands were shaking, and so were the papers he was holding.

Lynn was found guilty at the first trial, Blessing told the judge, as were Engelhardt and Shero at a second sex abuse trial. Avery pleaded guilty. What more proof do you need that crimes were committed, Blessington argued.

"It's crazy, Your Honor," Blessington told the judge.

When it came to Detective Walsh, Blessington didn't dispute any of the facts as put forth by Bergstrom. Instead, Blessington argued that Walsh's opinion that Danny Gallagher wasn't credible was simply that, just an opinion. 

"So what" if the detective didn't believe Gallagher, Blessington said.

"Sorry Joe," Blessington told Walsh, a former teammate who wasn't in the room. "Your opinion doesn't count."

Evaluating a witness's credibility is the duty of jurors, Blessington said. And they found Lynn guilty, and they found Engelhardt and Shero guilty after they listened to the testimony of Danny Gallagher.

About the evidence in the cases, "We turned everything over," Blessington argued. That's why the defense knows about all the contradictions in Gallagher's stories.

At the end of today's hearing, the judge told the lawyers that hopefully by next week's hearing, she would have a decision on Bergstrom's motion to dismiss the case. As well as Bergstrom's motion to not admit any supplemental cases of sex abuse as evidence against Lynn.

The Msgr. Lynn Retrial: A Seth Williams Production

At today's hearing, Bergstrom argued that it would only take a week to retry the Lynn case, if the court would limit it to just the alleged rape of Gallagher by Avery. But if the district attorney is allowed to present a dozen other crimes involving other people, Bergstrom said, the trial could take three or four weeks.

It was Bergstrom's contention that admitting any other crime as evidence in the case, including Avery's guilty plea, would only serve to infer Lynn's guilt, as well as to bolster Gallagher's lack of credibility.

The district attorney argued, however, that they want to include a dozen other cases to show a pattern of behavior in the archdiocese, namely covering up sex abuse. And if the judge agrees to admit those dozen cases, the retrial of Lynn could take up to four to six weeks.

God help us.

The judge also has to rule on a motion by the defense to drag Gallagher's voluminous medical records into the case.