Alleged Victim Offers Testimony As Philadelphia Clergy Abuse Trial Begins
By Tony Hanson
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- There's emotional, tearful testimony as a 26-year-old man tells a Philadelphia jury he was sexually assaulted by a parish priest when he was a 10-year-old altar boy at St. John Cantius in Bridesburg in 1997.
The alleged victim says Father Andrew McCormick recruited him to be an altar boy and then sexually assaulted him after an evening mass. Later he says the priest emotionally abused him, made him feel terrible, that he was going to hell for who he was, a homosexual, and he says he considered and tried suicide multiple times the next year.
He says he finally came forward in 2011 to face the memories and scrutiny so this does not happen to another little boy.
The defendant has pleaded not guilty and the defense has challenged the alleged victim's credibility suggesting inconsistencies and discrepancies in his statements and testimony.