City unveils mob plan
Following last month’s youth melee that spilled into the Gayborhood, Mayor Nutter this week unveiled the city’s new plan to deal with ongoing attacks by mobs of youth in Center City.
The multi-pronged approach includes adjusting the curfew time for those under 18 from midnight to 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays in Center City and University City, where the gatherings have most often surfaced, as well as stricter enforcement of weekday curfews.
Curfew-breakers will be fined $100-$300 and the parents of repeated offenders could face fines of $500. Parents who do not retrieve their children from policy custody could face child-neglect charges.
Hours at 20 recreation centers in the city will also be extended on weekends.
Franny Price, chair of the Police Liaison Committee, welcomed the efforts and the mayor’s harsh admonitions of the youth.
“I’m optimistic,” she said. “I’m pretty impressed with the mayor because he really told it like it is.”
Trial set for priests
A judge last week set a trial date for a sex-abuse case that has shone a national spotlight on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
Monsignor William Lynn will stand trial March 26 for his alleged role in covering up sex abuse by Archdiocesan priests, the first case of its kind in the nation.
Lynn will be tried alongside the Revs. Charles Engelhardt and Edward Avery, as well as lay teacher Bernard Shero, who are charged with molesting the same boy at St. Jerome Parish in the 1990s, and former priest James Brennan, charged with molestation in a separate case.
Lynn handled sex-abuse investigations as secretary for the clergy under former Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.
Prosecutors are attempting to solicit video testimony from Bevilacqua, said to be suffering from both cancer and dementia.
Common Pleas Judge Teresa Sarmina ordered a competency hearing for Bevilacqua Sept. 12 to determine if he can testify.
Elsewhere last week, the Archdiocese of Wilmington in Delaware agreed to a nearly $25-million settlement with 39 sex-abuse victims that will include the public release of the names of a dozen priests accused of molestation, along with their personnel records, to shed light on how the accusations were handled by the Archdiocese.
— Jen Colletta