Retired priest held for sex assault trial after alleged victim testifies at hearing
Man says he was abused at age 11
A tense hearing played out Wednesday in a small Munhall courtroom as a 29-year-old man testified in graphic detail about being sexually assaulted as a boy by a priest, whose attorney grew so frustrated with the judge’s oversight that he called for a new judge and a new hearing.
District Judge Thomas Torkowsky held for trial criminal charges against the Rev. Hugh Lang, an 88-year-old retired Catholic priest and a former superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Pittsburgh. He faces multiple charges over an alleged episode of sexual abuse in 2001, when the boy was 11 years old.
The accuser, who now lives overseas, appeared in a dark suit and answered questions readily and without emotion from assistant district attorney Thomas Kelly and defense attorney J. Kerrington Lewis.
The young man said that he was punished for a comment he made while in training to be an altar server in August 2001 at St. Therese Parish in Munhall. He described in detail how, he said, Father Lang brought him to a basement room and sexually assaulted him.
The witness, who is not being identified because he is an alleged victim of sexual assault, said
during practice, he had remarked to another boy, “I’ll bet Father Lang drinks all the wine after Mass. That was the grounds to pull me aside.”
He described the alleged assault in blunt detail.
He said that Father Lang took him, ostensibly for discipline over the remark, to a basement room.
Once there, Father Lang ordered him to undress and then took a Polaroid photo of him, showed it to him and warned him not to tell anyone, the witness said. He said the priest then “felt me all over my body,” including his genitals. He testified that the priest then exposed himself and used the boy’s hand to masturbate himself.
Mr. Lewis became frustrated with Judge Torkowsky’s terse rulings on objections and with the arrangement of the courtroom. Mr. Lewis asked the judge to recuse himself from the case. The judge refused.
The attorney was not pleased when the judge granted Mr. Kelly’s request to allow the witness to testify while seated at the prosecutor’s table rather than on a witness stand.
Mr. Lewis objected that he couldn’t see the witness’s demeanor because the prosecutor, Mr. Kelly, was obstructing his view, and when the judge allowed Mr. Lewis to stand up front and observe, the attorney said it would be difficult to take notes at the same time. But, in the end, he did so.
During cross-examination, Judge Torkowsky sustained several of Mr. Kelly’s objections to Mr. Lewis’ questions, generally those that veered beyond the immediate events of the day or that drew from a police affidavit in the case. “This is a preliminary hearing, keep that in mind,” the judge said, alluding to the proceeding’s limited role of determining whether there’s enough evidence to move toward trial.
Judge Torkowsky gruffly ordered Mr. Lewis to move on to new questions rather than dispute the objections, and he reproved the attorney
“You can do anything you want, but I’m not going to recuse myself from this case.” — District Judge Thomas Torkowsky
for trying to approach the witness while questioning him.
“Just do your job, sir. I’m running this courtroom,” the judge said at one point.
Mr. Lewis eventually called the entire hearing a “disgrace.”
“I object to proceeding under these conditions,” he said.
When Judge Torkowsky refused to recuse himself, Mr. Lewis said he would ask Allegheny County Common Pleas Court to invalidate the hearing and order a new one with a new judge.
“You can do anything you want, but I’m not going to recuse myself from this case,” the judge said.
After the testimony, Mr. Lewis refused to offer an argument, claiming there “is no procedural due process.” The judge held the case for trial.
Father Lang has been on leave from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, not allowed to do ministry, since August after the diocese first learned of the allegation.
Father Lang, dressed in corduroys and a vest and keeping his outdoor jacket on in the courtroom, pleaded not guilty. He did not testify or comment afterward.
But Mr. Lewis, in comments to reporters afterward, noted that Father Lang had not faced any allegations before now: “I believe he is innocent, and I wouldn’t have been fighting so hard in there if I didn’t believe it.”
He was charged Jan. 25 with seven related charges: unlawful contact with a minor; corruption of minors; aggravated indecent assault; sexual abuse of children involving photography or other imaging; indecent exposure; and two counts of indecent assault. On Wednesday, the prosecution added a third count of indecent assault and changed the aggravated indecent assault charge to one of attempted aggravated indecent assault.
According to a police affidavit, the accuser had called a hotline set up by the state attorney general’s office in August, soon after the release of a grand jury report on sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania. That call was forwarded to Childline and in turn to county police.
Father Lang was not one of the 301 priests named in the grand jury report issued by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro in August that described more than 1,000 child victims from more than 300 abusive priests across much of the state.
Father Lang, in retirement, had until August continued to celebrate Mass and preach at St. Anne’s in Castle Shannon. In addition to St. Therese, he worked in other parishes and also served as assistant superintendent and then superintendent for diocesan schools from 1976 to 1988.