United States: Edward Avery's guilty plea — the one Philadelphia conviction that stands
Request a correction or replyRecord class
Core record
Evidence status
Convicted
Authority role
Catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Organization
Archdiocese of Philadelphia
Archive classification
This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.
An altar boy under parish clergy — the same nexus as the rest of the Philadelphia case set.
- Pastoral or clerical authority
Evidence structure
Proceedings
2012-03-22 · guilty plea; conviction never disturbed
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania, USA. Edward Avery, a defrocked Philadelphia priest, pleaded guilty on 22 March 2012 — days before the archdiocese's landmark trial — to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with an altar boy and conspiracy to endanger a child, receiving two-and-a-half to five years. In January 2013, called as a prosecution witness, he recanted under oath, saying he had pleaded to avoid dying in prison. He served his term; no court has vacated the plea.
Documented coercion mechanisms
- parish and sacristy access to an altar boy
Cited record
Sources
- national newspaper court reporting plea report 'Defrocked Phila. priest pleads guilty to sex abuse just before trial', Philadelphia Inquirer, 23 Mar. 2012.
Contemporaneous report of the plea.
- national newspaper court reporting disposition update Philadelphia Inquirer retrial coverage, 19 Feb. 2020.
Later coverage confirming the plea's status and the recantation context.
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.inquirer.com/philly/news/homepage/20120323_Defrocked_Phila__priest_pleads_guilty_to_sex_abuse_just_before_trial_is_to_start.html Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: plea-report. SHA-256 0c365bb4d21d70ba890b7d5b56690e4efed036bb9f2a959100089cfdad799a94
- Retrieval
- 2026-07-20 · Preserved
- Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
- Source and tier basis
- https://www.inquirer.com/news/william-lynn-philadelphia-archdiocese-retrial-billy-doe-testimony-20200219.html Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: disposition-update. SHA-256 a99b742df97e0926e8edf44e933e12624f5b2a2e0c4745570aa613f13d52be99
- 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)