State and city prosecutors, who had despaired of following up on a lot of priest molestation cases due to the Statute of Limitations, are discovering a major loophole on may of those statutes — the clock stops ticking if the suspect leaves the state. And since so many of these priests were quickly transferred away by their bishops …
And, judging by some comments, such end-runs around the Statute of Limitations is more than appropriate.
Mr. Burkholder said yesterday in an interview from his apartment on Oahu that his lawyer had barred him from discussing the cases in which he has been charged. Still, he ventured that there had been, on the boys’ part, “maybe a willingness, a need for affection or something, that they were looking for something.”
In an interview with The Detroit News that the newspaper published yesterday, Mr. Burkholder said his relationships with boys were “always a two-way thing.”
“The boys work in the rectory with the priest and you just get friendly. You sit down in the rectory and have a Coke. It’s a mutual deal,” he said. “An affectionate thing and a friendly thing.” He said he mostly fondled the boys, but sometimes had oral sex with them.
“It’s a friendship between two people that has been made into something horrible, rotten. People are trying by hook or by crook to make me look bad. Some of the accusations are true, but so what? I was a priest, a good priest, who had a weakness.”
‘Nuff said.