As reported in the local media, Father Frank Murd was arraigned in Lucas County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday morning on charges of improper sexual contact with an adult male.
What timing: It was the Toledo diocesan priest's 66th birthday.
Judge James Jensen set a trial date for June 24.
I thought it was interesting that Father Murd has hired Thomas Aquinas Matuszak to represent him. Mr. Matuszak was the attorney who wrote the request for a search warrant for the Toledo Catholic Diocese when the prosecutor's office was trying to get the hidden files on Father Gerald Robinson.
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I gave a talk last week in Kansas, Ohio, about my book. There were about 50 people in the audience in the Methodist church. Most of them had read "Sin, Shame & Secrets" and had a keen interest in the case and wanted to know more.
But there was one elderly woman who just scowled at me the whole night.
When it was time for questions, she said she felt that the DNA evidence should have exonerated Robinson. I explanained that only a minuscule amount of DNA was found at the crime scene and the evidence was contaminated because DNA was not used as a forensic tool in 1980 and no one preserved the crime scene for it. But she just frowned, shook her head, and said, "I just think he's innocent."
As the old saying goes, there's one in every crowd.

Toledo, Ohio
May 17, 2008