Monsignor William Lynn to be released from prison today
A Roman Catholic church official is set to leave prison after 18 months because he won an appeal of his landmark conviction in the priest-abuse scandal.
A state prison spokeswoman, Terri Fazio, says Monsignor William Lynn is scheduled to be released Thursday from the prison in Waymart, in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Lynn is set to be taken to Philadelphia, where he must remain on electronic monitoring while prosecutors appeal the Superior Court ruling.
The 62-year-old Lynn was the first U.S. church official ever charged for hiding complaints that priests were molesting children. He was the point person for those complaints in Philadelphia from 1992-2004.
City prosecutors charged him with felony child endangerment. But the appeals court says the law that existed at the time didn’t cover people who don’t directly supervise children.
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