Friday, April 4, 2014

Billy Doe's "Fantasy Of Sexual Abuse"

The alleged victim
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

A lawyer for convicted child rapist Bernard Shero is seeking a new trial based on "newly discovered evidence" of contradictory and false statements made by alleged victim "Billy Doe" to his many drug counselors.

Doe, now 25, is the former 10-year-old altar boy who claimed at two historic Philadelphia sex abuse trials that he was raped by two priests as well as Shero, a former Catholic school teacher. It was Doe's testimony that also sent Msgr. William J. Lynn to jail for 18 months before an appeals court overturned Lynn's conviction.

The "newly discovered evidence" surfaced during a civil case that Doe has filed against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Doe, a former drug addict who used marijuana, magic mushrooms, pills, LSD and heroin, has been treated at 23 drug rehabs. He's also been arrested a half-dozen times, including one bust, subsequently dismissed, for possession with intent to distribute 56 bags of heroin. In the civil case, Billy Doe is seeking money from the archdiocese and a host of other defendants for alleged damage to his mental health. So a judge in the civil case has ordered the defendant's lawyers to turn over Billy Doe's medical records from his various drug rehabs.

What did defense lawyers discover when they got a look at those records? That Billy Doe, previously known for making wildly varying allegations to authorities, told his drug counselors four different stories in just one year about allegedly being abused. And none of those stories Billy told his drug counselors match the story he told two Philadelphia juries about being raped by two priests and a school teacher.

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Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Star Witness In State Supreme Court Justice's "False Light" Suit Against The Philadelphia Inquirer: Inky Publisher Bob Hall

Inquirer Publisher Robert J. Hall
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

State Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery and his wife, Lise Rapaport, have filed a lawsuit against The Philadelphia Inquirer, claiming that a series of articles on referral fees paid to Rapaport portrayed the justice and his wife in a false light, and also defamed them.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court by Dion G. Rassias of The Beasley Firm, the sponsor of this blog, is unusual because it quotes as the star witness against the defendants Robert J. "Bob" Hall, publisher of the Inquirer.

The lawsuit pans the first article in question, published on on March 4, 2013, as "heinous, untrue and savage in its portrayal of the Plaintiffs." The article was so bad," Rassias writes, "that even the publisher of the newspaper, Robert J. Hall, had to admit under oath that he was so appalled by the story, and the lengths The Inquirer had gone to in order to 'make Justice McCaffery and his wife look bad,' he called [Inquirer Editor William K.] Marimow ... and expressed deep concern over the placement of the article."