Shanley Witness: I Can't Stand It

After a grueling second day of intense and graphic questioning by the lawyer for Paul Shanley, the man who accused the defrocked priest of sexually abusing him as a child begged the judge Thursday not to force him to continue testifying.

"I can't do this again," the man said, his shoulders slumped and his head down as Shanley's attorney bored in, asking graphic questions about the nature of the sexual abuse he contends he endured. "I can't start over again. Every time I come back I have to start over. It's been three years."

Frank Mondano, Shanley's attorney, spent the past two days seeking to undermine the accuser's credibility, grilling him about his troubled childhood, his abuse of alcohol and steroids, his gambling habit - and his motivation for coming forward with what he says are repressed memories of the abuse that allegedly took place over six years.

The man, now a 27-year-old firefighter, says Shanley raped and molested him at a Newton parish, beginning when he was 6. He didn't remember the abuse until early 2002, when he heard a friend's account of being abused as a boy by Shanley, one of the central figures in the Boston Archdiocese's clergy sex abuse scandal.

When Mondano began asking detailed and graphic questions about the abuse, Shanley's accuser broke down. Clasping his hands behind his head and pressing his forehead against the rail of the witness stand, he began loudly sobbing.

By the end of the day, with the jury out of the room, doubts were being raised about the likelihood the accuser would return for a third day of questioning by Mondano. The judge urged him to return, but is unable to force him to continue testifying because he is not appearing under a subpoena.

"Can I ask a request of you?" the man told the judge. "Please don't make me."

Afterward, Mondano told reporters that if the alleged victim doesn't show up for further questioning, he believes he has grounds for a mistrial - or the basis for asking a judge to declare Shanley not guilty on the grounds he wasn't able to fully confront his accuser.

But Mondano also suggested it's unlikely the victim will, in fact, fail to return.

"He'll be back and I'll be back," Mondano said.

Earlier in the day, Mondano implied that the man's account was tailored to conform to those of three other alleged victims who were dropped from the case by prosecutors.

The man, now the lone accuser remaining in the case, testified for a second day of Shanley's child rape trial, one of the few cases in which prosecutors have been able to bring charges against priests accused of molesting boys decades ago.

The man said his mother left him when he was 3 years old, and his father beat him. Under a barrage of questions from Mondano, he also acknowledged that he drank heavily and abused steroids for 8 years starting when he was 16. He also said he gambled away hundreds of dollars at a time.

He blamed his steroid use on Shanley, saying the sexual abuse caused him to develop a "poor self image."

"It just made me feel better about myself," said the accuser, who said he once smuggled steroids across the border from Mexico. "I just thought I looked better."

Plaintiffs in the hundreds of lawsuits filed over the clergy sex abuse scandal have made similar claims that they spiraled into lives of drug abuse and depression after being molested by Catholic priests.

Mondano challenged claims the man made in his lawsuit, which he settled with the archdiocese last year for $500,000. In it, the man blamed Shanley for his difficulty maintaining relationships and for his failure to realize his dream of playing Major League baseball.

"This too you blame on Paul Shanley?" Mondano asked.

"Absolutely," the accuser said.

Mondano has said the man made up his story to cash in on the multimillion-dollar settlements paid to victims of the Boston scandal.

In his first day on the stand, the man testified Wednesday that Shanley would pull him from Sunday morning catechism classes at St. Jean's parish and sexually abuse him in the church pews, confessional, rectory and bathroom. He said the abuse continued until 1989, when he was 12.

Shanley faces three charges of raping a child and two charges of indecent assault and battery on a child. He could get life in prison if convicted.

His case became one of the most notorious in the abuse scandal because personnel records released by the archdiocese showed that church officials knew Shanley publicly advocated sex between men and boys, yet continued to transfer him from parish to parish.

The case hinges on the concept of repressed memory, in which past experiences are suppressed in the subconscious until a trigger brings them back.

Shanley's accuser said the scandal in Boston triggered his 20-year-old memories of being molested. But Mondano has questioned the timing and validity of those memories and said he would call expert witnesses to debunk the science behind repressed memories.

Most of the priests accused in hundreds of civil lawsuits avoided prosecution because the alleged crimes were committed so long ago that charges were barred by the statute of limitations. But because Shanley moved out of Massachusetts, the clock stopped. He was arrested in California in 2002.

By Denise Lavoie