Mass. Priest Goes To Trial On Child Rape Charges

CBS TV 4, Boston/June 22, 2006

Cambridge -- The trial of a Catholic priest accused of paying a teenage boy for sex, begins Thursday.

Father Paul William Hurley, 62, of Sandwich is charged with 2 counts of raping a child. It is alleged that Hurley paid the 15 year-old up to $100 on several occasions for sexual favors.

The alleged assaults happened in 1987 and 1988, in the rectory of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Cambridge, where Hurley was assigned at the time.

Prosecutors say Hurley met the boy three years earlier, when he served at Saints Peter and Paul Church in South Boston, where the alleged victim lived.

According to prosecutors, Hurley knew the boy was using the money to buy drugs. In the decades since the alleged abuse, the victim has racked up a criminal record.

Hurley was placed on administrative leave in the archdioceses and indicted by a grand jury in 2002 – at the height of the priest sex abuse scandal. He pled not guilty and has been free on personal recognizance, awaiting trial.

Jury selection begins Thursday at Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge. If convicted, Hurley faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.