By Michael Levinson, July 25, 2017<\/p>\n
Paul R. Shanley<\/a> , a former \u201cstreet priest\u201d who became one of the most notorious figures in the Catholic Church\u2019s sexual abuse scandal, is set to be released from prison as early as this week after serving 12 years behind bars for raping a Sunday school student in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n Middlesex prosecutors said they had hoped to keep the 86-year-old defrocked priest behind bars even after his sentence was completed by having him declared a \u201csexually dangerous person.\u201d But two doctors who examined Shanley found that he did not meet the required criteria, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are awaiting their final reports,\u201d Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan\u2019s office said in a statement Tuesday. \u201cHowever, both doctors have informed us that they have concluded that Shanley does not satisfy the legal criteria for a petition to be filed.\u201d<\/p>\n Shanley was accused of abusing roughly two dozen victims over several decades, many of them troubled adolescents who came to him for counseling when he ran a \u201cministry for alienated youth\u201d<\/a> in Boston in the 1960s and 70s.<\/p>\n Prosecutors and prison officials would not say when Shanley will be released from Old Colony Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Bridgewater where he is serving his sentence. But victims\u2019 attorneys said they were told it would be this week, most likely on Friday.<\/p>\n