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Columnist Bill Conlin resigns amid child molestation allegations

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Hall of Fame baseball writer and longtime Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin retired on Tuesday amid allegations of child molestation.

Three women and a man say Conlin groped and fondled them, and touched their genitals, in assaults in the 1970s, when they were 7 to 12 years old.

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‘This is a tragedy,’ Kelley Blanchet, a niece of Conlin’s who said he molested her when she was a child, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. ‘People have kept his secret. It’s not just the victims, it’s the victims’ families. There were so many people who knew about this and did nothing.’

‘Mr. Conlin is obviously floored by these accusations, which supposedly happened 40 years ago,’ George Bochetto, Conlin’s attorney, said. ‘He has engaged me to do everything possible to bring the facts forward to vindicate his name.’

Blanchet and the others said they were speaking out now because the alleged sexual assaults and coverup at Penn State brought back painful memories.

Prosecutors in Gloucester County who took videotaped statements from the four last year say there is nothing they can do because assaults that occurred before 1996 fall under the statute of limitations.

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