Monsignor William Lynn has pleaded no contest to failing to turn over documents to a 2002 grand jury. He had been awaiting a retrial after his 2012 child endangerment conviction was twice overturned on appeal.
Twenty years after city prosecutors convened a grand jury to investigate the handling of priest-abuse complaints within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the tortuous legal case came to an end with a cleric’s misdemeanor no contest plea in a near-empty City Hall courtroom.
“He lost 10 years of his life, 10 years of his priestly life,” said defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom, speaking of the decade since Lynn’s conviction. “It’s a travesty. It’s an absolute travesty.” His trial attracted a packed courtroom full of press, priest-abuse victims and outraged Catholics, along with a few church loyalists. Lynn, the longtime secretary for clergy, was accused of sending a known predator — named on a list of problem priests he had prepared for Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua — to an accuser’s northeast Philadelphia parish.
The pandemic closed the courthouse, and the case against Lynn stalled yet again until the recent plea offer. “I did not intend any harm to come to . The fact is, my best was not good enough to stop that harm,” Lynn testified.
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