Ex-Church Official Gets New Trial Date Two Days After Prison Release

In this Jan. 6, 2014 file photo, Monsignor William Lynn walks from the criminal justice center in Philadelphia. The landmark conviction of the Roman Catholic church official imprisoned over his handling of abuse complaints in Philadelphia has been overturned for the second time. A Superior Court ruling, Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015, awarded Lynn a new trial.

A Philadelphia judge has assigned former church official Monsignor William Lynn a new trial date, just two days after he was released from prison.

Lynn is the highest-ranking Catholic Church official to be convicted with endangering the safety of children by allowing sexual abuse by priests to go largely unchecked. But that conviction was overturned.

Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright ruled Tuesday afternoon to release Lynn on $250,000 bail, according to the Inquirer. Lynn had three months remaining in his sentence.

Lynn, a former aide to Philadelphia’s Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, was sentenced to three to six years in prison following a controversial 2012 trial. The verdict was thrown out on appeal in 2013, and then reinstated by the state Supreme Court in April 2015.

In December 2015, Superior Court ordered a new trial, ruling that the verdict was unfair because the trial judge allowed too many victims not directly related to the case to testify. The Supreme Court upheld this decision last week, the Inquirer reports, prompting Bright’s bail ruling.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said he will retry the case, the Associated Press reports. This morning at a hearing, a judge set a trial date for May 1, according to the AP.

Bigtrial.net reported in 2014 that appeals in Lynn’s case could go on for years.

Lynn is free on bail and living with relatives, according to the AP.

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