Pa. high court asked to reject appeal in priest abuse case

Attorneys for a Roman Catholic church official are asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to reject prosecutors’ appeal of a decision granting him a new trial.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that Monsignor William Lynn’s attorneys on Tuesday called the request “breathtakingly dishonest.”

Lynn, 65, is the first U.S. church supervisor arrested over his role in the alleged cover-up of priest sexual abuse. A Philadelphia jury found in 2012 that he endangered an altar boy by sending a known pedophile priest to the boy’s parish in the late 1990s.

The Superior Court has twice thrown out the conviction, saying Lynn was wrongly charged or didn’t get a fair trial. He has served more than two years of a three- to six-year sentence and another 16 months of house arrest.