DEDHAM, Massachusetts – A Massachusetts choose on Wednesday dismissed a legal case charging former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick with molesting a 16-year-old boy in 1974, saying the 93-year-old was not competent to face trial after psychological consultants discovered he had dementia.
McCarrick, a former archbishop of Washington, D.C., who was defrocked by Pope Francis in 2019, turned the one present or former US Catholic cardinal to ever face baby intercourse abuse prices when prosecutors in Massachusetts first charged him in 2021.
He was charged in April in a separate, ongoing legal sexual assault case in Wisconsin involving the identical alleged sufferer, who prosecutors mentioned was fondled by McCarrick when he was 18 years previous whereas staying as a visitor at a cabin in 1977.
Prosecutors in Dedham, Massachusetts, mentioned that three years earlier, throughout a household wedding ceremony reception at Wellesley College, McCarrick groped the boy as they walked round campus earlier than taking him right into a small closet-like room and fondling him.
But on Wednesday, Judge Paul McCallum in Dedham granted prosecutors’ request to dismiss three counts of indecent assault and battery over the 1974 incident, after a psychologist retained by the prosecution testified she believed McCarrick had dementia.
Kerry Nelligan, the psychologist, testified that when she met with McCarrick in June, he was typically unable to recall what they mentioned and that his situation rendered him unable to meaningfully take part in his personal protection.
“There were significant deficits in his memory and ability to retain information,” Nelligan mentioned.
Her evaluation was shared by a protection skilled who earlier this yr mentioned McCarrick has dementia, probably on account of Alzheimer’s illness. McCarrick, who lives in an assisted residing facility in Missouri, appeared by video and mentioned nothing in the course of the proceedings. He had beforehand pleaded not responsible. His legal professionals declined to remark.
McCarrick was expelled from the Roman Catholic priesthood in 2019 after a Vatican investigation discovered him responsible of sexual crimes towards minors and adults.
A Vatican report in November 2020 discovered that McCarrick rose by way of the church’s ranks regardless of rumors of sexual misconduct and that Pope John Paul II promoted him regardless of understanding the allegations.
The Massachusetts and Wisconsin instances are the one two he has confronted regardless of lawsuits by different males accusing him of sexual abuse many years in the past. A authorized quirk froze the statute of limitations within the Massachusetts case after McCarrick, a non-resident, left the state.
His alleged sufferer in a courtroom submitting on Wednesday mentioned the case “was to have provided a modest level of payback” after he suffered years of abuse at McCarrick’s arms.
“McCarrick walks a free man and I am left with nothing,” the alleged sufferer wrote. — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
