Superior Court Reverses Msgr. Lynn's "Historic" Conviction

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

The Superior Court of Pennsylvania today reversed the landmark conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn on one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

The court said the "plain language" of the state's 1972 child endangerment law required that Lynn had to be "a supervisor of an endangered child victim" in order to be convicted of the third-degree felony of endangering the welfare of a child. Lynn, however, never even met Billy Doe, the former 10-year-old altar boy who was the alleged victim in the case.

In a unanimous 43-page opinion by a panel of three judges, the Superior Court said Judge M. Teresa Sarmina's decision to allow the conviction of Lynn under the state's original child endangerment law was "fundamentally flawed."

"It's just absolutely wonderful," said Thomas A. Bergstrom, Lynn's defense lawyer. "This whole prosecution was totally dishonest from day one," Bergstrom said of District Attorney Seth Williams and his staff. "They had to know that that statute didn't apply to Lynn. And their attempt to justify it just doesn't wash."

"The tragedy of this is Lynn should have never been prosecuted," Bergstrom said. "He's been sitting in jail 18 months for a crime he couldn't possibly commit as a matter of law."

"Now, we're working on getting him [Lynn] out of jail," Bergstrom said. "We're looking for a judge to vacate the sentence. The warden needs more than just our assurances" to let the monsignor out of jail.

Msgr. Lynn, 62, is now serving a 3 to 6 year prison term after his June 22, 2012 conviction on one count of endangering the welfare of a child, namely Billy Doe.

Lynn's defense lawyers have long argued that the state's original child endangerment law didn't apply to the monsignor, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's former secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. Despite the plain language of the law, however, and a 2005 grand jury report that specifically said the law didn't apply to Lynn, it's an argument that fell on deaf ears until today.

"This was the defense position from day one," said Alan J. Tauber, a member of Lynn's defense team. "It's a shame that Msgr. Lynn had to spend even a day in jail, much less a year and a half, before the defense argument was vindicated."

"This is a triumph for the rule of law," Tauber said. "It's a complete rejection of the district attorney's application of the law."

District Attorney Seth Williams, who does not talk to this blog, told Maryclaire Dale of the Associated Press that he strongly disagreed with the decision, and would most likely be appealing it.

For more than a year, Williams has stonewalled all questions regarding his self-described "historic" prosecution of the monsignor, three priests and a Catholic school teacher. Lynn was the first Catholic administrator in the country to be sent to jail for the sexual sins of the clergy, even though he never laid a hand on any child. His crime was not properly supervising abuser priests in the archdiocese, so that they wouldn't harm any more children.

On the eve of Lynn's trial, one accused priest, Father Edward V. Avery, implicated Lynn as an accomplice and pleaded guilty to sex abuse in order to receive a lesser sentence, but later recanted. At a second archdiocese trial that concluded Jan. 30th, another priest, Father Charles Engelhardt, and a school teacher, Bernard Avery, were convicted of sex abuse.

D.A. Williams' historic prosecution of the local Catholic archdiocese, however, was based on a faulty interpretation of the state child endangerment law as well as the dubious testimony of Billy Doe, the D.A.'s star witness.

Billy Doe is a former heroin junkie and thief who's been arrested six times, including one bust for possession with intent to distribute 56 bags of heroin. The D.A.'s star witness has been in and out of 23 drug rehabs; he also told authorities an unbelievable and constantly changing story.

Even people inside the D.A.'s office doubted Doe's credibility, but D.A. Williams said damn the torpedoes, let's go ahead with the case. D.A. Williams also presided over a fatally-flawed 2011 grand jury report that contained more than 20 factual errors that have never been corrected.

That grand jury report was based on a compromised investigation that rolled out the red carpet for the alleged victim, the son of a Philadelphia police sergeant. The D.A. waited two years before finally getting around to investigating any of Billy Doe's allegations. By that time, the defendants had been indicted and arrested, and tarred and feathered by the media, which trumpeted that faulty grand jury report as gospel.

When the D.A. finally investigated those allegations, what did he find? That nearly all the evidence in the case gathered by the district attorney's own detectives, including meticulous calendars kept by the alleged victim's own mother, contradicted nearly every aspect of Billy Doe's improbable story.

Now that Lynn's conviction has been reversed, the next question is whether Lynn gets out of jail.

"The short answer is he probably will get out but it may take a bail motion to get that accomplished," Tauber said. Before the Superior Court can free Lynn, Tauber said, the court will have to listen to any further appeal motions from the district attorney's office.

And although the law on child endangerment is clear, D.A. Williams probably isn't done grandstanding.

The state's 1972 child endangerment law says: "A parent, guardian or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he knowingly endangers the welfare of a child by violating a duty of care, protection or support."

For nearly 40 years in Pennsylvania, the law was applied to an adult who had a relationship with a child, such as a parent, guardian or teacher who "knowingly endangers the welfare of a child." Much of the Superior Court opinion reviews the appeal court's own previous rulings upholding those standards.

In 2005, then-District Attorney Lynne Abraham and a grand jury concluded that the 1972 child endangerment law did not apply to Msgr. Lynn, Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, or any other high-ranking official of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The grand jury issued a report that said although it would like to, it could not legally indict Lynn or Bevilacqua for the crime of endangering the welfare of a child:

"As defined under the law," the 2005 grand jury wrote, in remarks quoted today by the Superior Court, "the offense of endangering the welfare of children is too narrow to support a successful prosecution of the decision-makers who were running the Archdiocese. The [1972 child endangerment] statute confines its coverage to parents, guardians, or other persons 'supervising the welfare of a child.' High-level Archdiocesan officials, however, were far removed from any direct contact with children."

In 2011, however, a new politically ambitious district attorney, Seth Williams, and another grand jury looked at the same 1972 child endangerment law and concluded that it did apply, not only to Msgr. Lynn, but also to Fathers Edward V. Avery, James J. Brennan and Charles Engelhardt, as well as a lay teacher, Bernard Shero. The grand jury indicted the four priests and the teacher, and charged them with endangering the welfare of a child, along with other offenses.

Avery, Engelhardt and Shero are currently in jail as a result of Billy Doe's testimony and the D.A.'s historic prosecution. Father Brennan, who was accused by another victim, was acquitted on a hung jury, but is scheduled to be retried next year.

The Superior Court opinion pointed out that two years after he was appointed as the archdiocese's secretary for clergy, in 1994, Lynn conducted "a comprehensive review of the priests within the archdiocese," and "identified 35 priests who had been previously accused of sexual misconduct against minors."

Lynn's list of 35 priests covered three categories: pedophiles, priests guilty of sexual conduct with minors, and priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors with no conclusive evidence.

"The first name that appeared under the heading 'guilty of sexual conduct with minors' was that of Rev. Edward V. Avery," the Superior Court opinion noted.

Lynn's list of 35 priests was later ordered shredded by the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua. A copy, however, was found years later in a locked safe at archdiocese headquarters.

After the 2005 grand jury report came out, former District Attorney Abraham launched a state-wide crusade to amend the child endangerment law to include supervisors such as Lynn.

The amended law, which took effect in 2007, applies not only to "a parent, guardian or other person supervising the welfare of a child under 18 years of age," but also to "a person that employs or supervises such a person." 

Bergstrom argued to the Superior Court, however, that Lynn was charged ex post facto," or after the fact, under the standards of the 2007 law that was amended to include supervisors.

"Lynn never supervised the child," Bergstrom told the appellate judges during oral arguments made last September. Instead, Lynn supervised  Father Avery, who pleaded guilty to raping Billy Doe.

The alleged rape of Billy Doe took place during the 1998-99 school year, but was not reported to the archdiocese until 2009. 

"He [Msgr. Lynn] had no knowledge of it," Bergstrom said, referring to the alleged rape.

The Superior Court agreed. The court ruled that Lynn "did not know or know of" Billy Doe, and "was not sufficiently aware of Avery's supervision of" Billy Doe, "nor did he have any specific information that Avery intended or was preparing to molest [Billy Doe] or any other child at St. Jerome's," where the alleged crime occurred.

The Superior Court, in an opinion written by President Judge John T. Bender, said Lynn wasn't blameless when it came to looking out for the welfare of children.

"We cannot dispute that the Commonwealth presented more than adequate evidence to sufficiently demonstrate that [Lynn] prioritized the Archdiocese's reputation over the safety of potential victims of sexually abusive priests and, by inference, that the same prioritization dominated [Lynn's] handling of Avery," the Superior Court opinion states.

"Nevertheless, we do not believe such a showing is sufficient to demonstrate intent to promote or facilitate an EWOC offense," the Superior Court opinion stated. "The question of whether [Lynn's] priorities were more with the reputation of the church, or, instead, with the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Archdiocese priests, is not at issue in this case. The relevant question is whether there was sufficient evidence to demonstrate [Lynn] intended to promote or facilitate Avery's endangerment of [Billy Doe] and other children at St. Jerome's."

And, the Superior Court concluded, Judge Sarmina was wrong when she concluded there was sufficient evidence to convict Lynn.

"In sum, the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that [Msgr. Lynn] acted with the 'intent of promoting or facilitating" an offense of endangering the welfare of a child, the Superior Court opinion states.

"Having determined that the evidence was not sufficient to support [Msgr. Lynn's] conviction for EWOC [endangering the welfare of a child] either as a principal [actor] or an accomplice, we are compelled to reverse [Msgr. Lynn's] judgment of sentence," the opinion said. "And, as there are no other offenses for which he [Msgr. Lynn ]was convicted in this cased, [Msgr. Lynn] is ordered discharged forthwith."

The entire 43-page Superior Court opinion can be read here.