Martha Coakley Made a Deal with a Pedophile in 1995

The Boston Globe and others opened what would be considered a can of worms if it weren't true or if it weren't so disgusting.

Martha Coakley, now 56, was the head of the Middlesex (Massachusetts) child abuse unit in 1995. Fast forward to 2002 when Coakley, as the Middlesex District Attorney, and her staff prosecuted Reverend. John J. Geoghan based on an allegation that he squeezed the butt of a 10-year-old boy one time at a public swimming pool. She won and the conviction got Ms. Coakley a lot of praise. This was said to be the "first successful criminal case against the widely accused pedophile, a priest many had called "Father Jack.'' The Boston Globe

Ms. Coakley looked at lot different in 1995 when her approach wasn't so law abiding. Geoghan was being looked at for several acts of pedophilia including acts that involved three grade-school brothers. These boys told investigators that Geoghan had inappropriately touched them during visits to their house in Waltham, MA. They claim he made lewd phone calls to them. Coakley didn't prosecute. Rather she decided to let this disgusting pedophile get a year of probation which garnered no media attention. There were no formal charges and no criminal record for the priest.

At the time, Ms. Coakley was the front-runner in a special election for the United States Senate. She never followed up with the Boston Archdiocese regarding if there had been any earlier complaints against the priest. The public at the time had no idea that the archdiocese had thousands of documents regarding abuse complaints against Geoghan made by dozens of people going all the way back to the 60s!

Ms. Coakley has defended all her acts and the ways she handled the case. She also, appallingly, said that she "successfully negotiated specific terms of Geoghan's pretrial probation - a routine way of expediting minor criminal cases - requiring Geoghan to undergo psychiatric testing and be barred from unsupervised contact with children for a year." She calls this a minor criminal case? Her defense was that the boys didn't say that the touching by the priest would indicate assault and battery. Is she serious?

In 1996 Ms. Coakley wrote a letter to the brothers' mom. In it Coakley described details of videotaped interviews that investigators conducted with the boys. The boys described several instances of touching, including one where Geoghan soaped up one of the brothers in the shower. The Boston Globe

Coakley decided that the touching described by the boys didn't meet the definition of indecent assault because the brothers never said that Geoghan touched the parts of their bodies that a court would consider private. When people are on a jury for an indecent assault case they are told that the act might indecent if it involves touching portions of the anatomy commonly thought private, such as a person's genital area or buttocks, or the breasts of a female. Another definition is this "an offensive sexual act or series of acts exclusive of rape committed against another person without consent." source Coakley admits that the priest put the boys at risk but insists she didn't have enough to charge him with.

Coakley is a Democrat, which is my party of choice. I would have liked to see a Democrat take over Senator Ted Kennedy's seat. Coakley is in fact running or should I say was? Will this take her down? Should it? I say it should. This can not happen and if we look the other way and let Ms. Coakley sit in a Senate seat we are condoning her actions.

SOURCES
The Boston Globe
Boston.com
Merriem Webster.com