I think this is quite S.A.D. (pun intended): 5th generation fag presiders

- YouTube  Published on Oct 28, 2013.
Carl Marucci and Drew Marsenison were married in New York City on September 14, 2013. This is a 4:26 minute video trailer summarizing the emotions of the day. A 25-minute video is in the process of being created. Carl and Drew were engaged at the Bethesda Foundation on May 11, 2013, featuring a flash mob proposal that went viral around the world.
 
 
Commentary by Randy Engel
 
For the uninitiated, Carl Marucci, former Msgr. Carl J. Marucci of the Camden Diocese, N.J., was the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ protégée of Bishop James T. McHugh of the Camden Diocese and later the Rockville Centre Diocese in N.Y.  For many years, Bishop McHugh was the National “Prolife” Director of the NCCB/USCC Catholic Conference and was responsible for the implementation of classroom sex instruction in Catholic schools.   Bishop McHugh himself was a protégée of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ predator Cardinal Ted McCarrick of Washington, D.C., who, in turn, was a protégée of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ Cardinal Terence Cooke, who, in turn, was a protégée of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ predator Cardinal Francis Spellman of N.Y. Marucci is a 5th generation ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ cleric. If you can get your head around the You Tube of Carl and Drew’s “wedding” and “honeymoon” you will understand a great deal about how the ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ network in the American Church works and where it ends up.
 
The Rev. Msgr. Marucci was a long-time public relations man for Bishop McHugh and the Camden Diocese. When McHugh left Camden for Rockville Centre, NY, he managed to morph Marucci into a staff member of the Office of Permanent Observer for the Vatican at the U.N. Marucci resided at St. Agnes Church in Manhattan. When McHugh died quite unexpectedly, Marucci was left without a high-ranking sponsor. He eventually left the priesthood and settled into an interdenominational church. Then he disappeared for a while and I lost track of Marucci until tonight. The video on the “sacramentally celebrated marriage” pretty well speaks for itself.  
 
For more examples of clerical intergenerational relationships in the Catholic Church see The Rite of Sodomy at www.newegelpublishing.com.
For more information on Bishop McHugh see The McHugh Chronicles – Who Betrayed the Pro-Life Movement? Now You Know!  God have mercy. Randy Engel

Update:

Carl Marucci wrote in to CathInfo on 7/28/16, with the following e-mail.
(For some reason, he wrote to news at cathinfo.com and started with "Dear Randy," -- I think he's a bit confused about what a forum is and what a thread is)

While there are some truths to what you say (yes, I am married to Drew Marsenison), there are some glaring and even illogical untruths that need to be corrected, most importantly:

 

1) That I was the fifth generation of a part of an expanding network of gαy clergy (you say I was the protégé of Bishop James McHugh, who was the protégé of Cardinal McCarrick ... Terence Cooke, Francis Spellman). Well, I can't dispute whether such networks exists (I truly never saw this in action during my years of active ministry or otherwise). What I can assure you of is that I lived with Bishop McHugh for four years, and served as his personal assistant, vice chancellor, master of ceremonies, head of public relations and telecommunications, fundraising, and as diocesan spokesperson. In all of those four years he and I never had a single conversation about whether he or I was gαy. I truly do not know (or care) whether Bishop McHugh was ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ. I can just say that I never had any indication about that from him. Secondly, McHugh was named a bishop not because of any relationship with McCarrick (gαy or otherwise). Instead, McHugh was the Vatican's point man on life and demography issues, and was well known by Vatican authorities. My guess, Randy, is that it is the Vatican, not McCarrick, that pushed for McHugh's advancement (and that given his 'druthers, McCarrick would have preferred to select his own men for his diocese). So . . . there's two generations of the "network" which (in this case) just do not add up logically.

 

2) Your site notes this: "... When McHugh died quite unexpectedly, Marucci was left without a high-ranking sponsor. He eventually left the priesthood and settled into an interdenominational church." This statement, Randy, is simply illogical, and laughable. Remember, McHugh had offered my service to the Vatican's Mission at the United Nations. In my four years with the Vatican, I had developed connections with countless Vatican officials during that time, was named a monsignor at a very young age for planning the visit of John Paul II to the U.N. in 1995. I would not have needed McHugh present (alive or dead) for my "protection" or advancement. It was already there because of my many colleagues and associates in the hierarchy by then (I can remember one Cardinal saying to me--in Italian-- "Monsignor Marucci, you're on a great path. If you continue on this path, you'll have a 'hat' in two years...").

 
Randy, I left ministry more than 15 years ago and I only speak very positively about my experiences then. Not once during those years did I break my promise of celibacy. Still, to this day, I am quite traditional when it comes to liturgical matters. Even while at residing at St. Agnes Church (during my years with the U.N.,), I willingly learned and officiated at that parish's Tridentine Sunday Masses.

In any case, these are my thoughts. With all best wishes . . .

 

Sincerely,

Carl Marucci

When was he at St. Agnes?  When Fr. Rutler and Monsignor Clark were there?

I'm not sure.  It was a retreat that was set up by the late Father McLaughlin , the former Pastor of St. Francis de Sales in Barrington, NJ.  Father McLaughlin was the former Principal of St James High School in Carneys Point.  The Marucci Brothers were students there.  

 
    Sources: Diocese Paid $3.2 Million to Settle Sex Suits / the Abuse, Said the South Jersey Accusers, Was Unspeakable. Fifteen Were Told to Keep It That Way

By Maureen Graham
Philadelphia Inquirer
January 11, 1994

Stephen Palo, 31, hesitated before opening the folder that held copies of $50,000 in checks from the Catholic Diocese of Camden.

He was faced with a trying decision. For more than a decade, he had been suffering in what he called a "living hell" that began when he was a youth and a priest performed oral sex on him. He said the sɛҳuąƖ relationship had continued for 15 years.

In October the church had given Palo's family $50,000 to settle their claim against the priest. Still, Palo was torn. In accepting the money, he had signed an agreement barring him from ever talking about his case. If he talked, he'd have to return the money.

What angered him, Palo said, was what he saw as the church's desire to silence him - and others like him.

Palo is breaking the secrecy agreement.

"No matter how much money I get, no matter how much money the other victims get, the church is continually allowing the abuse to go on because they are paying us to be quiet," said Palo, wiping beads of perspiration from his forehead. "I don't want an innocent child to go through 20 years of hell like I did. Why doesn't the church put a stop to it?"

Palo was one of 15 people involved in a settlement with the Camden Diocese in October. There was little publicity about the settlement - and what information did emerge was incomplete or, worse, wrong. The court record was so ambiguous that some news accounts made it appear that one of the cases against the diocese had been dropped. Other accounts said three individuals had settled lawsuits against the church, for an undisclosed amount.

In fact, Palo and the 14 other complainants were paid a total of $1.8 million.

According to sources familiar with church bank records, the Camden Diocese has paid at least $3.2 million to 19 men and women since 1990. The church paid the money after hearing detailed complaints of sɛҳuąƖ abuse against nine priests.

In the settlements totaling $1.8 million, the church agreed to pay only if no one involved talked publicly about the cases.

At the time, diocesan lawyer Martin McKernan would say only that "all differences have been resolved." He would not comment on any other cases, and would not discuss how much money, in all, the diocese had paid.

"What is a confidentiality agreement if someone talks?" the REVEREND CARL J. MARUCCI, spokesman for the Camden Diocese, said in a recent interview. He said the diocese would have no further comment.

The two-page secrecy agreement in the October settlement was specific. It said that for anyone involved who was questioned, the only acceptable answer was: "Such differences as might have existed . . . have been resolved."

Bishop James McHugh of Camden declined to be interviewed for this article. Other Camden Diocese officials did not return phone calls to their offices.

According to the confidentiality agreement, the settlement is not intended "to be an admission of any liability of any kind."

The settlements in Camden are part of a growing pattern of payouts by Roman Catholic dioceses throughout the nation. Stephen C. Rubino, a lawyer who represented many of the complainants in the Camden case, estimates that as much as $500 million has been spent to settle sɛҳuąƖ abuse cases across the country. Rubino is chairman of the sɛҳuąƖ abuse litigation unit of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. He declined to discuss the details of any individual case.

For some families, the settlements were not the end of the matter.

"To this day I cannot attend a Catholic service and see the priests without getting upset," said Mary McCracken, whose parish priest was convicted and jailed for sɛҳuąƖly abusing her 12-year-old son. Her family was one of the 19 that received money from the diocese.

Lucy Palo said her son's sɛҳuąƖ experiences with a priest changed the way she worships. "I don't listen to the hype - the 'do as I say, not as I do' stuff. I worship my God my own way," she said. "I don't even look at the priest."

According to sources familiar with the October settlements, the diocese agreed to the $1.8 million in payouts after reviewing the cases individually.

The church issued checks drawn on the "Bishop's Resource Account," held at MidAtlantic Bank in Collingswood. The checks, numbered 158 through 174, were handwritten and signed by William Murray. The checks were in amounts ranging from $10,000 to $513,000. Two other checks, totaling $400,000, were drawn from the church's revolving fund at First Fidelity Bank.

Murray, a member of the Diocesan Finance Committee, did not return phone calls.

One of the settled cases involved the Rev. Gary Hayes, who along with two others sued the Camden Diocese in 1993, claiming the Rev. Joseph McGarvey has

sɛҳuąƖly abused them. Father Hayes, Steven M. Stolar and Terrence Smith were paid a total of $374,000 by the diocese. Father McGarvey, who is on a leave of absence, declined to comment.

The Diocese of Camden paid about $20,000 for psychological counseling for sex abuse complainants last year. Amber Samaroo, the psychologist who did most of the counseling, said in an interview that those victimized by a priest have a harder time understanding the sɛҳuąƖ abuse than other victims do.

"To them, it is as if they were having sex with God," Samaroo said. "It's a feeling these kids talk about all the time. To them, it's a tremendous sense of privilege, and they buy into that. Then, somewhere along the line they realize it's twisted."

Coming forward with details of abuse is difficult for many victims, Samaroo said, primarily because they often feel they are betraying their priest.

"There is guilt for turning in the priest," he said. "After all, they tell me, this person has been very good to him. This is the guy who took them camping, who taught them boating, who has been good to them for all these years."

Samaroo said he had not counseled any priests in New Jersey. He said he had counseled priests in Philadelphia.

Samaroo said sɛҳuąƖ aberrations he had seen in priests generally were "not something that started when they entered the priesthood." Instead, Samaroo said, he believes that many of his clients "sought the priesthood to escape their own sɛҳuąƖ inadequacy."

Samaroo said that in most cases, a priest will search for a "very Catholic" young person whose parents are particularly dedicated to the church. A priest will look for a family that "is willing to abdicate much of its responsibility of parenting to the church," he said.

Based on interviews, depositions and court records, what follows are accounts of three of the people who received money in settlements with the Camden Diocese:

*

Stephen Palo said he cannot erase the image of his first sɛҳuąƖ experience

from his memory:

Awakening from a sound sleep in the bedroom of his Blackwood home, 12-year- old Stephen Palo looks down and finds his parish priest massaging his genitals. Soon the priest begins oral sex.

"I pushed away," Palo, now 31, said in a recent interview. "I pulled the covers up to my neck. I felt like I was in the corner of the wall, apart from myself, just looking at it."

Thus began what Palo said was a 15-year relationship of routine sɛҳuąƖ contact between Palo, an altar boy, and the Rev. Joseph Shannon, who directed the altar boy group at St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church in Camden.

Father Shannon - currently on a leave of absence - acknowledged in a sworn deposition that he had sex with Palo.

In the deposition, Father Shannon was asked: "Weren't you supposed to conduct yourself as a priest even when you're in the Palo residence?"

"Yes," Father Shannon said.

"Did you?" the lawyer asked.

"Except in the middle of the night, yes," Father Shannon responded.

He said he was "certainly not the ideal priest, that's for sure."

In the deposition, the priest disputed Palo's account of their relationship to this extent: Father Shannon said Palo had initiated the affair, and he said Palo was 18 at the time. Father Shannon's testimony contained graphic descriptions of some of his sɛҳuąƖ relations with Palo.

Palo, who is in counseling, said he is struggling to understand how and why 20 years of his life centered on an intense relationship with a priest.

The priest had a close relationship with Palo's parents. Palo's father, who is now deceased, taught in the local elementary school. His mother described Father Shannon as outgoing and friendly.

The Palos would invite the priest to their home. They fed him. They opened the family liquor closet to him.

"He would drink scotch and talk to my parents," Palo said. "When he had a little too much to drink, my parents would tell him he could sleep over."

He slept in Stephen's room.

Father Shannon would counsel the family, especially Stephen and his older brother. When problems arose, it was the priest, not Stephen's father, who would talk to the boys and guide them, Palo said.

When they did something out of line, Father Shannon always understood, Palo said.

"He would say, 'God understands your weaknesses. Don't worry.' And everybody would feel better," Palo said.

Throughout Palo's younger days, Father Shannon would wrestle with him and tickle him, Palo said. He would visit the family sometimes up to four times a week.

"We were living in Blackwood," Palo said in a legal deposition. "We had just moved in a new house and I was sleeping in my bedroom, and Father Shannon had come into my room and started massaging my body."

Q. "Did these experiences continue on any regular basis?"

A. "I'd say like every - about twice a month. Father Shannon was over the house a lot. He didn't sleep over all the time, but when he did, things would happen."

The attorney asked Palo to describe what happened. Palo said Father Shannon, during sex, would always reassure him, much like he did during his early childhood, saying:

"It's OK, Steve. Don't worry. God understands this is a weakness. Don't worry about it. You'll be OK. You're not going to go to hell for this. This is fine. God understands weaknesses, and this is a weakness and He understands."

Q. "Whose weakness? His or yours? Did he say?"

"No," answered Palo. "He just - those were his words."

In an interview, Palo said that he had never told his parents about the relationship with Father Shannon, and that his family had never suspected.

Palo said that when he was older and dated women, he continued having sex with Father Shannon, and that at least once he went to the rectory and solicited sex from the priest.

"Father Shannon created a security for me. He made believe that he could take care of all my wrongs and all my hurt," Palo said in the deposition.

When Palo was 27, Father Shannon said he would no longer continue the relationship, Palo said.

Palo said he had two reactions: Confusion. And relief.

"When he finally left," Palo said, "I moved my bed so that it faced the doorway. That way, I would see who was coming into my room."

In 1990, a year after Father Shannon terminated the relationship, Palo began a relationship with a woman, and for the first time talked openly about his experiences with the priest.

He then filed a lawsuit.

In 1992, Judge John A. Fratto of Camden County Superior Court ruled that Palo could not collect money from the church because of a legal rule known as "charitable immunity," which prevents anyone who receives benefits from a nonprofit organization from suing it.

In addition, his case was barred by the statute of limitations, which requires a victim to file a lawsuit within two years of recalling what happened.

Palo threatened to appeal. The diocese settled the case with two checks totaling $50,000.

*

Mary McCracken, the mother of six, said she was elated when John McElroy, filled with youthful exuberance, drove into the Haddon Heights parish on his motorcycle in 1986. The young seminarian, whose priestly ordination she later attended, was attentive and thoughtful toward her children, especially her three boys, she said.

She was widowed and recently remarried, and was grateful that a man of the cloth had taken an interest in her sons. That, she said in a recent interview, seemed like an answer to her prayers.

The McCracken sons, ages 11 through 15, were drawn to the newly ordained priest.

Through the next three years, "Father Jack," as the family came to call him, was present at most family functions and was chosen to baptize the youngest child when she was born in 1987.

Father McElroy was transferred to St. Francis de Sales parish in Barrington.

One day in 1988, McCracken's 12-year-old came home from school and told her he had developed a serious drug problem. Shocked and confused, McCracken enrolled him in a six-week rehabilitation program.

On a Mother's Day she said she will never forget, she got a telephone call asking her to come immediately to the Bowling Green Adolescent Center in Camden County.

"You have to tell your mother," she recalls a counselor telling her son. "I can't do it for you."

Pale and shaken, the youth began an explanation:

"It wasn't drugs at all," she recalls her son telling her.

"McElroy was sɛҳuąƖly abusing him," she said. "He fondled him and touched him at least five or six times."

McCracken said that according to her son, one of the first instances of sɛҳuąƖ abuse happened in the shower stall at St. Francis de Sales Rectory in Barrington.

On the witness stand at the 1989 criminal trial of McElroy in Camden County Superior Court, the youth told his story in detail.

"Father Jack was doing things to me and touching me in places where he shouldn't," he testified.

The former priest admitted the sex abuse when questioned by Barrington police after a counselor reported the problem. In a taped statement, McElroy explained that he was giving the boy a shower when he touched the boy's penis "for maybe a minute or so."

McElroy also told police that a few weeks later he spent the night with the boy, and that they had sex.

"I knew it was wrong," the priest, then 30, said of the incidents.

Later, McElroy recanted his statements, saying they were taken under duress

because he was denied immediate access to a lawyer. At McElroy's trial, Judge D. Donald Palese ruled that the statement was legally obtained, and it was used as evidence in front of the jury.

McElroy was convicted of two counts of sɛҳuąƖly abusing a teenage boy. Now 34 and married, McElroy is serving a five-year prison term.

The diocese, in 1990, awarded the McCracken family a $700,000 annuity in an out-of-court settlement.

Mary McCracken said she was relieved when the jury convicted McElroy, in part because she felt many of her neighbors, some of her friends - even her pastor - did not believe what her son was saying. She said her pastor, Msgr. Richard J. Callahan, told her he could not offer her support.

In an interview, Msgr. Callahan said that "the community was split" on this issue, and that he didn't take sides. "All I knew was what I read in the papers," he said. "I wanted to be able to help all of them."

McCracken later wrote in a diary: "I was left to deal with the issues and problems that accompany sɛҳuąƖ abuse, alone and abandoned."

The incidents left her feeling abandoned by an institution central to her life.

"I am from a hard-working, middle-class family who depended on the church for support and understanding," she wrote in the diary.

"We volunteered our time and money to help spread our Christian beliefs within our community. We trusted our parish priests and sometimes thought of them as family."

She said she no longer trusts the church.

*

John Moken 2d, dressed in denim cutoffs, slouched in an overstuffed chair, his muscular, tanned legs stretched in front of him. He ran his hands nervously through spiked blonde hair.

"I'm a tough guy," said the South Jersey landscaper and father of two. "I don't want anybody to think I'm (ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ)."

Moken, 34, eyes cast downward, haltingly gave intimate details of what he said had been his introduction to sex.

When he was 10, he said, a priest performed oral sex on him, in a rectory.

"My wife keeps telling me I don't have to prove I am a man," he said. "But it's still there. I wonder if it ever goes away."

For seven years, Moken said, he and several friends were repeatedly abused by priests from the Camden Diocese.

In interviews and a sworn statement to St. Gregory's parish in Magnolia, Moken described sɛҳuąƖ contact by several priests, including the Rev. John Kelly of St. Gregory's, now dead.

In a 1992 statement Moken gave to Msgr. Edward L. Korda of St. Gregory's, he spoke about what happened to him and one other boy:

"We came to know Father John Kelly as grammar school students at St. Gregory at ages of 9 to 12. We were altar boys. He selected us as special friends, telling us that he checked our school records, that he liked us and wanted to help us. Father Kelly took us on trips, vacations, bought us gifts, a TV for the family and a motorcycle. Our association with Kelly and the accompanying sɛҳuąƖ activity lasted for about six years."

"While at the St. Gregory rectory one evening, Father Kelly gave me some beers and got me a little drunk," Moken said in the statement. "It was at that time that he began to rub me. He told me that it was all right; he started to rub my back, then my legs, and shortly thereafter had me take off all of my clothes and he began to rub my penis."

In another statement, Moken described later events:

"Father Kelly began to invite us into his rectory rooms and brought us there many, many times. He gave us whatever alcoholic drink we wanted and proceeded to get drunk himself. All this seemed to be new and special. He showed us Playboy and Penthouse magazines, a variety of nude photos, wrestled with us and took off our clothes, showered with us . . ." The statement went on to give graphic descriptions of sex acts.

"They had a little clique," Moken said of the priests. "You went to confession to them, and they told you everything was all right."

Over a period of six years, the priests took Moken and some of the other boys to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Long Beach Island, Moken said.

"They would take us to a gαy bar on Long Beach Island and sneak us drinks," he said. "You could get Rob Roys, martinis, anything you wanted."

The priests and boys would stay overnight at the home of a judge who believed he was turning his house over to the priests so they could take underprivileged children for a weekend at the beach, Moken said.

Father Kelly and some of the other priests warned the boys not to speak about the relationship to their parents, Moken said, and told them to stay away from women.

"Men do it together all over the world," Moken said he was taught.

As the relationship with the priests continued, Moken said, he grew increasingly confused.

He said he woke up one morning asking himself: "Who am I?"

Moken never considered telling his mother, and he kept the secret into his adulthood.

He said he had gone through a period of aggressive behavior and sometimes

violent outbursts, working as a bouncer in South Jersey bars.

Six years ago he married. He and his wife are raising two sons, ages 5 and 5 months.

In the statement to Msgr. Korda, Moken talked about the effect the priests had on him.

"All the events that took place over the years left us embarrassed and ashamed," he said.

"But Father Kelly assured us that God understood his need for gratification, and that as a priest he was entitled to this satisfaction. He said that God loved him and us.

"We were afraid, and at the same time we listened to him because he was a priest."

In his statement, Moken said that for both him and his family, the experience eroded their Catholic faith.

"Over the years, our trust in and of priests has been destroyed. We pray to God - but not really as Catholics."

Cochranville Man Charged in Mortgage Fraud Scheme

U.S. Attorney’s Office
October 13, 2011   

Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(215) 861-8200
A 41-count indictment was unsealed today charging John J. McElroy with orchestrating a mortgage fraud scheme that resulted in more than $4 million in losses to mortgage companies, banks, and credit unions, announced United States Attorney Zane David Memeger. According to the indictment, McElroy orchestrated the scheme in which he and others entered into sham real estate purchases and falsified docuмents to obtain mortgage loans and equity payouts on numerous properties. As part of his fraudulent scheme, McElroy allegedly established fake companies and submitted false claims to obtain funds, when, in reality, his companies conducted no business and rendered no services. In total, McElroy is alleged to have fraudulently purchased and/or refinanced 13 properties. At a detention hearing held today, U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy R. Rice ordered McElroy to be released on home confinement with electronic monitoring.

McElroy is charged with 17 counts of wire fraud, three counts of making false statements on loan applications, 11 counts of money laundering, and 10 counts of monetary transactions.

Information Regarding the Defendant

Name   Address   Age
John J. McElroy   Cochranville, Pennsylvania   53

If convicted of all charges. McElroy faces a maximum possible sentence of 920 years in prison, $28,000,000 in fines, supervised release, and a special assessment.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michelle Rotella.

An indictment or information is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

"He said he felt that Jack (Father McElroy) was innocent but that, if need be, he would testify that he was in the room when the alleged incident occurred," Tropiano said. "The way I took it was, if they needed to, John was going to come up and lie in front of the court."
Payne, testifying after Tropiano, said his neighbor had misinterpreted him. Payne insisted that he had testified truthfully about the shower incident, which allegedly occurred about Christmas 1987. "I wouldn't lie about something like that," he said.
Payne testified Tuesday that he was present when the priest washed the boy after the youth had run away from home and that he saw the priest do nothing improper. Payne later conceded during cross-examination that he was not present the whole time the two were together, and that his description of the bathroom had differed from that of a priest living at the rectory.
Father McElroy, 30, now suspended from his duties at St. Francis de Sales parish and living with the Payne family in Barrington, is charged with sɛҳuąƖ assault against the Audubon youth on six occasions from 1985 to 1988, from the time the boy was 12 or 13.
Tropiano's testimony came after attorneys in the case had presented their summations Wednesday and Superior Court Judge D. Donald Palese was preparing to give final instructions to the jurors before they began deliberations. Palese said deliberations would begin this morning.
The prosecutor's office learned of Tropiano's interest in the case when his wife contacted the office Wednesday. On Monday, another surprise witness, a parishioner and friend of the priest, came forward to testify against him, saying he had told her that he had touched the youth's buttocks and genital area.
Dorothy Tropiano testified yesterday that she had called the prosecutor after reading newspaper accounts of the trial because she felt guilty that she might be withholding valuable information.
Michael Tropiano said he met the priest four years ago, when the Paynes introduced him as their adopted son. Tropiano said he had not come forward
because of his friendship with Payne, who is the godfather of one of the Tropianos' daughters.
Assistant Prosecutor Leslie Dicker has painted the Paynes and other defense witnesses as friends and supporters of the priest whose accounts of events have been so unusually detailed that they are not credible.
During the trial, Dicker asked John Payne's daughter, Nancy, whether there was any romantic involvment between her and the priest. She denied such a connection.
Dorothy Tropiano, however, testified yesterday that she saw the priest and Nancy Payne alone in a car after midnight one night last summer. "It appeared that Rev. McElroy and Nancy were kissing in the car," she said.
Father McElroy's attorney, Frank Hartman, suggested that the Tropianos' testimony was motivated by their antipathy for the priest, an allegation the couple denied.