At abuse trial, convicted priests says he didn’t have contact with victim
A former priest who last year pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a young Northeast boy denied on Thursday he had ever touched the child.
Testifying in the trial of two men accused of molesting the same boy, Edward Avery, 70, told jurors he had not indecently assaulted a 10-year-old St. Jerome parish altar boy.
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He also said he had only a slight acquaintance with Charles Engelhardt, a priest the victim said had molested him first and that he didn’t know Bernard Shero, 49, a former parish school teacher who also is charged with assaulting the boy. Looking frail in prison clothing, Avery said he pleaded guilty in March 2012 to charges he had molested the boy in spring 1999 because he believed it was the best way to avoid a long incarceration.
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