United States: John Geoghan convicted — the case that broke open the Boston scandal
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Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
parish priest across six Boston-area parishes
Organization
Archdiocese of Boston
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
Parish boys under a priest's pastoral supervision, delivered to him repeatedly by an archdiocese that moved him rather than removed him.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
- Institutional obedience or isolation
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2002-02-21 · jury conviction and sentence
Massachusetts court, USA. John Geoghan, a Boston Archdiocese priest accused by more than 130 boys across six parishes over thirty years, was convicted on 21 February 2002 of indecent assault and battery on a ten-year-old boy and sentenced to nine to ten years. His serial transfers despite archdiocesan knowledge were the spine of the Boston Globe's Spotlight investigation. He was murdered by a fellow inmate in August 2003 before further trials concluded.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- pastoral and recreational supervision of parish boys across a thirty-year career
Cited record
Sources
- national public broadcaster conviction report PBS NewsHour, 'Church in Crisis' coverage of the Geoghan conviction and death, with Boston Globe Spotlight reporting.
Reports the conviction, sentence, and the case's role in the 2002 scandal.
Source provenance
Source access and integrity log
This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/church-in-crisis-john-geoghans-death Corpus classification: national-public-broadcaster; evidentiary role: conviction-report. SHA-256 038ec1682c68117f7914aff7b6be68837594481a0d1074fe3f2259bf6acd13bb
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
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Related record
Related cases · Christian institutions & contexts
- 2018 · Harrisburg, PA, USA PA grand jury: 301 priests, 1,000+ child victims documented ('weaponized' faith)
- 2009 · Dublin, Ireland Ryan Commission: abuse 'endemic' in Catholic-run institutions (state inquiry)
- 2021 · Paris, France CIASE/Sauvé Report: est. 216,000 abused by French clergy since 1950
- 2019 · Vatican City McCarrick: ex-cardinal found guilty by Vatican canonical process, laicized
- 2010 · Oregon City, OR, USA Beagley faith-healing death: parents convicted (criminally negligent homicide)
- 2014 · Philadelphia, PA, USA Schaible: 3rd-degree murder, second child dead of untreated pneumonia
- 2001 · London, UK Victoria Climbié: murder convictions; possession belief; Laming Inquiry followed
- 2012 · London, UK Kristy Bamu: kindoki 'deliverance' murder convictions (30/25-yr minimums)