Report: Failure in prison system

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BOSTON, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- Massachusetts officials admitted Tuesday defrocked Catholic priest John Geoghan should never have been housed with the state's most dangerous convicts.

"The thing we say is we're sorry that happened," said Edward Flynn, secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety. "That should not have happened."

A report released Tuesday said a three-person panel appointed by Gov. Mitt Romney found that because of major flaws in the prison system Geoghan was misclassified with the state's most dangerous prisoners at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, WCVB-TV in Boston reported.

"Inmate Geoghan was both unduly harassed and physically abused," Flynn said.

The report said guards wrote false disciplinary reports that eventually led to Geoghan's transfer to the maximum security prison in which he later was killed

Joseph Druce, serving a life sentence for murder, is charged with killing the 68-year-old former priest.

Geoghan, accused of molesting 150 boys over three decades, sparked the priest pedophile scandal in the Boston Archdiocese. He had been serving a nine- to 10-year prison sentence for improperly touching a 10-year-old boy.