Jury Acquits Survivor of Assault on Priest
The New York Times reported today that after three days of deliberation a California jury of nine men and three women found Will Lynch not guilty of criminal charges that he assaulted a Jesuit priest who in the past had sexually abused him when he was a boy. The story can be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/us/california-acquittal-in-beating-of-retired-priest.html?_r=1
Allegedly, over 30 years ago when this boy was only seven years old, the priest had abused Will who in 2010 punched the priest out in a Jesuit retirement home. The priest denied ever abusing Mr. Lynch but when he took the stand the priest was destroyed on cross-examination when he took the 5th causing his testimony to be striken.
The prosecutor called this survivor or childhood sexual abuse a vigilante but the jury disagreed. It apparently believed that the sexual abuse as a child was an excuse for beating up the priest years later. In his defense Mr. Lynch’s lawyer, Paul Mones, argued that Will wanted the priest to sign a confession and still felt threatened by him which seems to have injected self-defense into the case.
The times are a changing regarding any free passes alleged child predator priests or others think that they will receive from the courts or juries, as is evidenced by this verdict and the Philadelphia and Penn State jury verdicts in June.
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