Boston ex-priest who molested boy set free
86-year-old deemed unlikely to repeat crimes
BOSTON — A former priest at the center of Boston’s Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal was quietly released from prison Friday after completing a 12-year sentence for the rape of a boy in the 1980s.
Paul Shanley, 86, was released from the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater. He plans to live in an apartment in Ware, a town of about 10,000 people about 65 miles west of Boston, according to the state’s sex offender registry.
Prosecutors opposed his release, and several men who say they were abused by him when they were young called on the public to help them track his whereabouts. They said they are concerned Shanley will reoffend.
The registry designates Shanley a Level 3 offender, considered the most likely to reoffend. But two psychologists hired by state prosecutors cited Shanley’s advanced age and his health issues in concluding that his likelihood to reoffend is low.
Both psychologists found that Shanley meets the psychiatric criteria for pedophilic disorder. But they said in their written reports that research suggests that recidivism rates for people of his age are extremely low. They also cited Shanley’s health issues, which were redacted from the reports, and the fact that his last reported offense was in 1990.
Prosecutors sought to hold Shanley beyond his criminal sentence under a law that allows civil commitment of people deemed sexually dangerous. But the two psychologists found he did not meet the legal criteria to hold him.
Shanley arrived in Ware on Friday. His new home in a multiunit building is across the street from a recently opened dance studio that teaches children as young as 2.
As a condition of Shanley’s probation, he has been ordered to have no contact with children under 16.
Shanley was a street priest who ministered alienated youth in the 1960s and ’70s. Dozens of men came forward decades later and said Shanley had molested or raped them. He was defrocked by the Vatican in 2004 and was convicted of raping a boy at a Newton parish in 2005.
Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said he will review the standards for civilly committing convicted sex offenders who have served their prison sentences.
Shanley’s appellate lawyer said he’s served his time and is not dangerous.