Prosecution rests in Shanley church abuse case
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (AP) -- Prosecutors rested their case against former priest Paul Shanley -- a key figure in Boston's church abuse scandal -- with testimony on recovered memory, a topic the defense also hopes to tackle.
Prosecutors have said Shanley pulled boys from Sunday morning catechism class so he could rape them in the church confessional, pews, rectory and bathroom.
Shanley faces charges of raping a child and indecent assault and battery on a child. If Shanley is convicted, the maximum sentence would be life in prison.
Prosecution witness Dr. James Chu, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, said it is not uncommon for adults who suffer trauma as children to repress memories of the experience.
The testimony was an attempt to bolster the account of a 27-year-old firefighter who says he remembered in early 2002 that he'd been repeatedly raped and molested by Shanley from 1983 to 1989.
Shanley's lawyer has said the man made up the story to cash in on the multimillion-dollar settlement paid to victims of the Boston sex scandal.
Under cross-examination from Shanley attorneys, Chu acknowledged there is an intense debate within the psychiatric community about the validity of repressed memories. He also conceded false memories can be implanted in a person's mind through repeated suggestions by someone they trust.
Following an off day Tuesday, Shanley's lawyer plans to call only one witness -- Elizabeth Loftus, a University of California psychologist who has challenged the reliability of recovered memory.
Shanley, now 74, became one of the scandal's most notorious figures after archdiocese personnel records were released showing church officials continued to transfer him from parish to parish even after they knew he publicly advocated sex between men and boys.
Shanley's accuser says he recovered his memory after talking with Greg Ford, a close friend who also accused Shanley of raping him at St. Jean's in the 1980s.
Ford and two other alleged victims were dropped from the case by prosecutors before it went to trial, leaving just the one accuser to testify against the former priest.
Judge Stephen Neel threw out one of the three child rape charges Monday. The defense asked for dismissal of the charge related to oral sex because the accuser's testimony didn't support it. Prosecutors didn't object.
Four former classmates of Shanley's accuser also testified Monday that the boy was frequently absent from religious education classes.
The trial is one of a handful of criminal cases that prosecutors have been able to bring against Roman Catholic priests accused of molesting their young parishioners decades ago.
Most of the priests accused in civil lawsuits have avoided criminal prosecution because the alleged crimes were committed so long ago that charges were barred by the statute of limitations. But because Shanley moved out of Massachusetts, the clock stopped, allowing prosecutors to arrest him in May 2002 for sexual abuse that allegedly took place between 1979 and 1989.
Internal church documents showed church officials knew about allegations against him as early as 1967 yet continued to transfer him from parish to parish.
Shanley, once a long-haired priest in blue jeans who reached out to Boston's troubled youth in the late '60s, was defrocked by the Vatican in 2004.
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