Thursday, August 4, 2011
A disgraced Roman Catholic bishop betrayed little emotion Thursday as an Ottawa court was told his laptop computer contained hundreds of pornographic images of young boys — including photos of torture. Bishop Raymond Lahey was in the Ottawa courtroom for sentencing in a child-porn case that has rocked his former Nova Scotia Diocese of Antigonish. The 71-year-old cleric pleaded guilty in May to importing child pornography and voluntarily went to jail to begin serving time even before a formal sentencing. A second charge of simple possession remains against Bishop Lahey, but it is expected to be withdrawn as part of the plea deal when he is formally sentenced later this year.Close to 600 photos, mostly of young teen boys, were found on Bishop Lahey's Toshiba laptop and a handheld device when he was stopped at the Ottawa International Airport in September 2009. An Ottawa police detective told the court Thursday that the images ranged from soft-core nude shots to far more gruesome photos. “Some of them were quite graphic,” Det. Andrew Thompson said. “There were images of nude boys, but there were also torture and stuff like that.”
As Det. Thompson answered questions from the witness stand about the contents of Bishop Lahey's laptop, the Bishop sat quietly, his right hand trembling slightly as he ran his index finger along his mouth, chin and the cleft between his nose and upper lip. He was dressed in a grey sport coat, khaki pants and a tan shirt with the top few buttons undone. He wore glasses and his grey hair was neatly combed and gelled.
Bishop Lahey's lawyers argued that the bishop may not have seen every image stored on his laptop's hard drive, since some of the pictures may have come from pop-up windows he never actually looked at. They also tried to make the case that the 588 images of child porn were just a small fraction of the 155,000 or so photos on his computer. Police found three child-porn websites in Mr. Lahey's web-browsing history, Det. Thompson said.
Bishop Lahey is scheduled to return to court in December. His lawyer, Michael Edelson, has asked the judge to reschedule that appearance for an earlier date.
Sources include
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/atlantic/torture-photos-among-those-found-on-bishop-laheys-laptop-court-told/article2119607/
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/blahey.html
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/diocese/danti.htm
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