Philadelphia, USA - A Roman Catholic cardinal and his top aides lied about shredding a key piece of evidence in the Philadelphia clergy-abuse scandal, a long-time church lawyer testified Monday.
Lawyer Tim Coyne was looking for an internal 1994 list of 35 suspected predator-priests for a 2004 grand jury investigation. He asked Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and four top aides if they knew where to find it.
Coyne said he doesn't remember any response from Bevilacqua. And the aides -- two of whom went on to lead other dioceses -- denied they knew where it was, Coyne said.
No one told him that Bevilacqua had ordered the list shredded in 1994, shortly after Monsignor William Lynn, his secretary for clergy, compiled it.
"Everyone who I spoke to said they didn't know where it was and they didn't have a copy of it," Coyne testified Monday.
"Everybody lied to you?" Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington asked.
"That's fair," Coyne said.
The list is something of a smoking gun in Lynn's child-endangerment trial, although each side is trying to spin it to their advantage.
Prosecutors in 2004 were deep into a three-year probe of the archdiocese. Their blistering 2005 grand jury report blasted Bevilacqua, Lynn and others for their handling of abuse complaints lodged against 63 priests, but said no criminal charges could be filed, mainly because the complaints were too old.
It's not clear if the list -- or suggestions that evidence was being shredded -- would have helped them make a case against anyone.
Lynn, 61, was charged last year over his handling of more recent abuse complaints.
Defense lawyers argue that he alone tried to do something about the festering abuse problem when he served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004.
They point to the list as proof.
Lynn told the grand jury in 2002 that he decided to go through secret church files holding abuse complaints to create a list of problem priests who were still active. His list described three priests as diagnosed pedophiles, and deemed others "guilty" because they had admitted the abuse. The list was discussed at a February 1994 meeting between Bevilacqua and his closest aides.
Another memo states that Bevilacqua ordered Monsignor James E. Molloy to shred the original list and three copies, including one sent to Bishop Edward Cullen, a top aide who later led the Allentown diocese.
Hand-written notes state that Molloy did so in the presence of another aide, Bishop Joseph R. Cistone, who is now the bishop of Saginaw, Mich.
Yet a surviving copy of the list was found at the archdiocese early this year -- 10 days after Bevilacqua died.
The list was found in a gray file in Coyne's office. But it had been found in 2006 in a locked safe at the Secretary for Clergy's office.
In 2006, a staff person cleaning out that office's file room came across the safe, according to the woman's testimony last week. The room was in disarray after the three-year grand jury investigation. She hired a locksmith to open it, and found the gray file inside, she said.
The staffer said she left the file with an assistant to Monsignor Timothy Senior, who had followed Lynn as secretary for clergy. Coyne said that Senior later gave it to him. The lawyer said he only glanced at it before putting it in his files, and didn't realize it contained the list he had sought in 2004.
On cross-examination, defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom asked if Lynn had taken steps to look for it in 2004. Lynn had told the grand jury about his work compiling the list, but couldn't find it to give the grand jury.
"My impression is he looked everywhere for it," Coyne said.
The list was only discovered on Feb. 10, on the eve of Lynn's trial. Bevilacqua, a potentially key trial witness, had died Jan. 31 at age 88.
Coyne has since been put on leave as counsel to the archdiocese.
Molloy is deceased. A spokeswoman for Cistone referred a call for comment to his lawyer, William Winning of Philadelphia, who did not immediately return a message Monday afternoon. A spokesman at the Allentown diocese did not immediately return a call for Cullen, who retired in 2009.
The Philadelphia archdiocese is not commenting on trial developments because of a gag order.