2 Counts Dropped Against Ex-Priest

BOSTON â€”  A judge dismissed two child rape charges against the former Roman Catholic priest at the center of the Boston Archdiocese sex scandal Thursday, saying prosecutors had not filed them in time.

The defrocked priest, John Geoghan, had argued the 1999 indictment alleging he twice raped a young boy between 1980 and 1984 came after the statute of limitations had expired.

Suffolk County Judge Margaret Hinkle agreed. County prosecutors said they had made no decision whether to appeal.

The boy in the latest case, now a 27-year-old mechanic with two sons, said he had not heard of the judge’s decision and had no immediate comment.

Geoghan is serving a 9- to 10-year sentence for fondling a 10-year-old boy at a pool and faces a third criminal trial for abuse of a child as well as 80 civil lawsuits.

The archdiocese is at the center of a growing sex abuse scandal that broke wide open after reports that church officials ignored warnings about Geoghan’s pedophilia. Cardinal Bernard F. Law publicly apologized to Geoghan’s victims and announced a revamped “zero tolerance� policy.

In the last several weeks, the archdiocese has given prosecutors the names of 80 priests accused of abuse over the last 50 years and suspended 10 active priests.

In other developments:

* St. Louis Archbishop Justin Rigali said a computer belonging to a priest in suburban Florissant has been seized as part of a child pornography investigation. Father John Hess has left his parish. Two other priests in the archdiocese have been removed in the last week amid allegations of child molestation.

* A spokesman for the Pittsburgh diocese said Bishop Donald Wuerl has recently removed several priests from the ministry because of accusations of child sexual abuse. The spokesman, Father Ronald Lengwin, wouldn’t say how many priests had been removed.