Danny Gallagher, Clear Your Calendar For March 16th

Oh Danny Boy! A Subpoena is Headed Your Way!

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Danny Gallagher, it's time to make your reservations for visiting beautiful Philadelphia during the week of March 16th.

That's the date when the District Attorney of Philadelphia plans to retry Msgr. William J. Lynn on one charge of endangering the welfare of a child. The alleged victim in this case is Gallagher, AKA "Billy Doe," the lying, scheming altar boy who made up a story about being repeatedly raped by two priests and a schoolteacher. And then the former altar boy, junkie and conman sold that story to a corrupt former Philly district attorney looking for headlines at the expense of the Catholic Church.

Rufus Seth Williams, Gallagher's official enabler, is sitting in a  federal prison these days, doing five years for political corruption. But his corrupt brainchild lives on in the form of the ongoing prosecution of Msgr. Lynn, now in it's 10th year, all for a crime that never really happened because Gallagher made it all up.

To continue their tawdry record of corruption and willful misconduct in this ongoing witch hunt, the D.A.'s office, under a new corrupt D.A., Larry Krasner, was attempting to retry Lynn without having to call Gallagher as a witness, who would likely face a withering cross-examination. But today, Judge Gwendolyn Bright ordered the D.A.'s office to subpoena Gallagher, and make him "available as a witness during the duration of the trial."

It was an amazing development in a case where Judge Bright to date has not exactly been operating in the public interest.

She's still got a gag order up in the case, which bars the lawyers on both sides from talking to the media. She's also been routinely instructing the lawyers to file their pretrial motions under seal, where the press and public can't see them.

As I pointed out previously, the only party that benefits from this arrangement is the D.A.'s office, which gets to keep its ongoing corruption in this case out of public view.

But today, Judge Bright issued a one-page order that basically put the D.A.'s office on notice that if they expect to try the monsignor for endangering the welfare of a child, they better have an alleged crime victim available to put on the witness stand. Even if it's a fraud like Gallagher.

The D.A.'s office under Krasner had been arguing that by merely putting an abusive priest back into ministry, Lynn was guilty of committing the crime of endangering the welfare of a child. But that's not how they tried the monsignor the first time, and so they're going to have to stage the rerun with the star of the show, Gallagher, back in the spotlight.

And with all the tall tales he's told over the years, if he does show, Gallagher, who stole $5 million from the Catholic Church in a civil settlement, will be risking a perjury rap.

In her order, the judge denied three other defense motions where Lynn's lawyers were trying to get the case against their client dismissed on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct, double jeopardy, and a claim that the original statue of limitations in the case had run.

But the judge said no to a total of four defense motions which so far have been kept out of public records. And so Gallagher is going to have to make plans to leave his home in sunny Florida and come back to the town where his lies sent four men to prison for an imaginary crime spree.

In a fourth loss for the defense, the judge today denied a defense motion to compel the D.A.'s office to disclose pretrial whether they intend to call Gallagher as a witness. To date, the D.A. has only said that Gallagher will be on a witness list, but they supposedly haven't made the decision yet on whether they will call him.

In her order today, the judge identified Gallagher, dubbed Billy Doe by a grand jury report, only by his initials, as "D.G." So the coverup continues. Back when they were covering this case, the Inquirer always referred to Gallagher as Billy Doe. But he's been outed by other media outlets that don't think a transparent fraud should continue to be protected by anonymity, outlets that include Newsweek, National Catholic Reporter, and this blog.

All the original defendants in the case, including Lynn, have served their prison sentences, except for Father Charles Engelhardt, who died in prison. Lynn was sentenced back in 2012 to 36 months in jail. He served 33 months behind bars plus 18 months of house arrest. His original conviction has twice been overturned on appeals.

Would a judge actually send Lynn back to jail to serve three more months? Stay tuned.

The retrial of Msgr. Lynn is now scheduled to begin on March 16th, in Courtroom 807 of the Criminal Justice Center. The news of the judge's most recent order in the case was first reported by MaryClaire Dale of the Associated Press.