Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian is crying foul after the Archdiocesan Review Board cleared a Weymouth priest, Cambridge native Rev. Charles J. Murphy, whose last assignment was at St. Francis Xavier Church in Weymouth, of sexual abuse. Murphy had been accused of abusing a teenage boy while assigned to St. Agatha’s Church in Milton during the early 1970s.
According to the Patriot Ledger, in April, the Rev. Murphy voluntarily stepped down from public ministry during the investigation.
The decision to clear him of the accusations was made by the Archdiocesan Review Board, an interfaith advisory board that includes victims of clergy sex abuse, parents and a judge. It makes recommendations to Cardinal Sean O’Malley.
Garabedian called the review board a “kangaroo court” that is biased in favor of the archdiocese. Garabedian said his client was interviewed by archdiocesan investigators but never questioned by the board. Garabedian was also the lawyer for a former Rockland woman who alleged that Murphy molested her when she was a girl and the priest was director of counseling at the Boston School for the Deaf in Randolph.
