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  Shanley Motion in Abuse Case

By Denise Lavoie
Guardian [Cambridge MA]
February 2, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - A judge rejected a request Wednesday from a defrocked priest's attorney to dismiss the child rape and indecent assault charges against him.

Two days after the prosecution wrapped up its case, attorney Frank Mondano said the evidence showed that Shanley's accuser has a false memory of being abused by former priest Paul Shanley in the 1980s.

"You have either a false memory or a repressed memory, and I submit that the evidence is greater on the false memory theory," Mondano said.

Prosecutor Lynn Rooney said there is no evidence the memory was implanted in the accuer's mind as the defense suggests.

Middlesex Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel rejected Mondano's motion, saying the question will have to be answered by the jury.

The defense is expected to present its only witness on Thursday - Elizabeth Loftus, a psychologist and memory researcher who is skeptical about the validity of repressed memory theories.

Closing arguments are expected following Loftus' testimony.

After the prosecution rested Monday, Neel threw out one of the three child rape charges at the request of Shanley's attorney, who said testimony did not support it. Prosecutors did not object.

That leaves him facing two counts of child rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child. The maximum sentence would still be life in prison.

Shanley's 27-year-old accuser claims that memories of abuse at the hands of the priest came flooding back three years ago when he heard a friend's account of similar abuse.

The accuser has told the jury that Shanley began molesting him when he was 6 years old. Shanley would take him from Sunday school classes at St. Jean's and rape him in the church bathroom, rectory and confessional, the man said.

The trial is one of a handful of criminal cases nationwide that prosecutors have been able to bring in the Roman Catholic clergy abuse scandal.

Boston Archdiocese personnel records showed that church officials knew Shanley advocated sex between men and boys, yet continued to transfer him from parish to parish. He was defrocked by the Vatican last year.

 
 

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