Lynn, 61, a former top administrator for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, is charged with two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Also to be tried are priest James Brennan, 48, charged with raping a 14-year-old boy in the summer of 1996 at his West Chester apartment while on leave from Springfield's Cardinal O'Hara High School; priest Charles Engelhardt, 65, and defrocked priest Edward Avery, 69, both of whom are accused of raping a boy at St. Jerome Parish in the Northeast beginning in 1998, when the boy was 10.
A fifth defendant, Bernard Shero, who'll be 49 tomorrow, will be tried separately for allegedly raping the same 10-year-old boy.
Aided by stacks of internal memos and documents from the Archdiocese - some containing information dating to the 1960s - the team of prosecutors cited shocking criminal and shady acts allegedly committed by the defendants and by priests who have not been charged.
The prosecutors contended that Brennan, for a time, lived and partied with two teenage boys and lied about the arrangement to O'Hara officials, telling them that one boy was his brother and the other his nephew, and that Avery, in the 1990s, despite church concerns about misconduct with boys, worked as a deejay at teen parties and took boys on overnight trips during which he gave them alcohol.
In the case of Lynn - who was responsible for investigating abusive priests as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004 - the prosecutors presented evidence that he did little to discipline a string of priests after receiving often graphic complaints from the children and their families.
