COURT APPEARANCE

Shanley Lawyer Challenges Case and Bail

By John Ellement, Globe Staff, 5/10/2002

CAMBRIDGE - A composed Rev. Paul R. Shanley was back in court yesterday, where his defense attorney argued it would have been impossible for Shanley to rape and molest a young boy each week for seven years while the alleged victim attended Catholic education classes at a Newton church.

Frank Mondano, Shanley's defense attorney, mounted his attack on the criminal charges against the priest as he asked Middlesex Superior Court Judge Charles Hely to decrease the $750,000 cash bail set for Shanley in district court Tuesday.

''The logistics of the claim essentially make them not possible,'' Mondano said as he tried to convince Hely the three counts of rape of a child under the age of 16 are built on a weak foundation.

Hely took the bail review request under advisement and said he will issue a written ruling, but did not say when he will make his decision.

Shanley is alleged to have sexually assaulted a Newton boy, Paul Busa, every week beginning when Busa was 6 years old in 1983 and continuing until 1990. Shanley was then assigned to St. John the Evangelist Church, which has since been closed.

Shanley has pleaded not guilty. Busa has filed a civil lawsuit against Shanley and the Archdiocese of Boston.

Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Mondano said he was ''speculating'' that the members of the parish who ran the religious education classes would not have let Shanley - or anyone else - have ''wholesale'' access to the one victim and other children.

''I suspect they would not have permitted [children] being removed wholesale'' from the classrooms, he said. He said he assumed the parishioners ''took pretty good care'' of the children in the classes. He said he has not yet been given all the evidence against Shanley.

In court, Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Lynn Rooney said the account from the alleged victim - whom she did not name - has been corroborated by others. She also alleged Shanley committed oral and anal rape on the victim as well as numerous instances of ''indecent'' touching in the church's pews, the confessional, a church bathroom, and the rectory.

Rooney, as she did at Tuesday's arraignment, quoted form letters Shanley wrote to the Archdiocese of Boston in the late 1990s while civil lawsuits were being filed against him and the church for alleged sexual molestations of children. She said those letters are evidence that Shanley could flee from Massachusetts if bail is reduced.

In the correspondence, Shanley offered to move to Costa Rica or Mexico while keeping in touch with the archdiocese through a post office box in the United States. For the first time, Rooney referred to a 1999 letter in which Shanley offered to move to South America to save the archdiocese on expenses.

But Mondano said Rooney was twisting the meaning of Shanley's words in the letters. He said that Shanley had never considered becoming a fugitive, in part, because he has no income other than that provided by the archdiocese. He also said Shanley has unspecified health problems that could not be taken care of if he was no longer covered by the church's health insurance program.

At his earlier court appearance, Shanley was in casual clothes, the same clothes he was wearing when arrested by San Diego authorities on April 30. Yesterday, Shanley wore a gray suit jacket.

During most of the 20-minute proceeding, he sat still in a jury box, staring straight ahead. But when Rooney described the allegations against him, Shanley shifted his focus - without moving his head - to Rooney. Shanley had no obvious emotional reaction.

Mondano told reporters Shanley was ''fatigued'' earlier in the week, but has since had a chance to rest and is ready to mount a vigorous defense. ''He came back to take it on, head-on. That's his frame of mind,'' Mondano said.

Mondano said relatives and friends of Shanley's are willing to help the priest post bail.

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/130/metro/Shanley_lawyer_challenges_case_and_bail+.shtml

BOSTON -- The bail for a retired priest charged with raping a Massachusetts boy was lowered Friday to $300,000 from $750,000.

The Rev. Paul Shanley, one of the priests at the center of the sex abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese, is being held on charges of raping the boy over a six-year period in the 1980s, including in a church confessional.

Judge Charles Hely, sitting at Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge, also ordered that if Shanley makes bail, he must report to a probation officer, surrender his passport and provide "satisfactory assurances that he will have and will remain residing at a single fixed residence within the Commonwealth."

Shanley's attorney, Frank Mondano, sought the lower bail at a hearing on Thursday, describing prosecutors' fears that the priest would flee as "absolute fiction."

Arguing that bail not be changed, prosecutor Lynn Rooney said internal church correspondence showed Shanley gave frequent thought to moving to Central or South America.

Mondano could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.

Thursday, Mondano said Shanley had deep ties to Massachusetts, where he lived until 1990 before moving to California. He also said his economic situation tied him to the archdiocese, which pays the retired priest a stipend and covers his health insurance.

Shanley, a former "street priest" who ministered to drug addicts, homosexuals, and runaways, was arrested in San Diego last week and was escorted to Massachusetts on Monday under tight security and wearing a bulletproof vest.

At his arraignment Tuesday, Shanley, 71, was ordered to surrender his passport, not to contact the alleged victim or his family, and avoid contact with children under age 16.

While he more than halved Shanley's bail, Hely said the circumstances of his arrest still "warrant substantial bail."

In his ruling, Hely said the charges against Shanley "are among the most serious in the law short of murder." He noted Shanley had not been a resident of Massachusetts for years, and that the state claims he had recently visited Thailand.

"There is a likelihood that if he had had advance notice of the charges he would not have voluntarily returned to the Commonwealth to face the charges," Hely wrote.

"The judge made a reasonable finding of facts and a decision on bail that in his discretion, he believed was fair," said Seth Horwitz, a spokesman for Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley.

He refused to comment when asked if Coakley would challenge the ruling.

Jeffrey Newman, who represents two of Shanley's alleged victims, said Shanley "should be held until his trial. He is not only a flight risk but a danger to other children because he cannot control his sexual deviance."

Roderick MacLeish, who represents a number of Shanley's alleged victims, said he could not comment objectively on the bail reduction. "That's why we have judges to make these decisions," he said. But he agreed that $300,000 cash qualifies as substantial bail.

Attorney David Yas, the publisher and editor in chief of Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, said despite the bail being cut by more than half, "$300,000 cash in any case is nothing to spit at."

Yas said Hely may have sought a compromise between the $750,000 bail prosecutors sought and obtained, and the release on personal recognizance his defense lawyer requested. Another priest arrested this week and charged with raping a child, the Rev. Ronald Paquin, is being held on $100,000 bail.

"Bail is not a reflection of guilt. It's designed to prevent flight," Yas said.