WARE, Mass. (WHDH) — A convicted pedophile priest and notorious figure in the Boston sex abuse scandal was released from prison early Friday morning after serving 12 years behind bars for raping a boy at a Newton parish in the 1980s.
Officials said 86-year-old Paul Shanley was released from a correctional center in Bridgewater. Shanley will live in an apartment in Ware. He was spotted around 11:30 a.m. at the Ware Police Department, where he registered as a sex offender, before pulling away in a Nissan sedan.
The registry lists Shanley as a Level 3 offender, meaning he is most likely to re-offend.
Shanley was a “street priest” who ministered to alienated youths in the 1960s and 1970s. Decades later, dozens of men came forward and said Shanley had molested or raped them. He was defrocked by the Vatican.
Sexual abuse victims say they’re concerned that Shanley will not have enough supervision after he’s released and that he will rape again. He’ll be monitored by probation officials for a decade, but isn’t required to wear an electronic monitoring device.
Attorney’s representing Shanley’s victims say no one is safe with him on the street. Residents of Ware say they are alarmed and disturbed that Shanley will living among them.
“He’s going to be molesting again,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer who represented dozens of men who said they were abused by Shanley. “Paul Shanley should be in a hospital being treated and not in the outside world where he can easily gain access to innocent children.”
Shanley’s lawyer says he’s served his time and is not dangerous.
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