Less than a week after being acquitted by a jury of felony assault and elderly abuse following a confrontation with a Los Gatos priest he says raped him as child, a San Francisco man has created an non-profit organization that aims to end the cycle of sexual abuse against children.
William Lynch, 44, never denied the 2010 assault on Rev. Jerold Lindner, a Catholic priest living at the Sacred Heart retirement home in Los Gatos. But he testified he did so because Lindner allegedly brutally raped and sodomized him and his brother when they were children in the 1970s.
Now Lynch, hopes to prevent what happened to him and his brother from happening to other children and to provide resources to and empower survivors of sexual abuse.
Roots for Individual and Social Enterprise is a program and foundation for victims of sexual abuse that provides health services, legal representation and community advocacy to promote awareness and influence policies for social change, according to the RISE website.
A Santa Clara County jury found Lynch not guilty of felony assault and elder abuse last Thursday. However, the jury deadlocked in favor of a conviction of misdemeanor assault, which resulted in a mistrial on this lesser charge.
