Philadelphia archdiocese legal bill: $11.6M

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia reports that it spent $11.6 million on legal fees in the past two years, most of it on priest sexual-abuse cases.

The figure, released Tuesday, includes $10 million in the first nine months of the current fiscal year that ends June 30.
That means the total doesn’t include most of the 11-week criminal trial for Monsignor William Lynn. Lynn has four lawyers defending him on charges he helped cover up child sexual assaults as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. The archdiocese is paying his legal fees.

The jury in his case is now in its third day of deliberations.

The costs stem from both the criminal investigation and civil lawsuits, along with the unrelated embezzlement of nearly $1 million from the archdiocese.