The highest-ranking Catholic official to ever be convicted of child sexual abuse is getting ready to appeal his conviction. 

Cardinal George Pell was convicted in December 2018 of molesting two choirboys in an Australian Cathedral over 20 years ago. In March 2019 he was sentenced to six years in prison for the crimes.

According to Premier, one law professor feels Pell may succeed in his appeal. Jeremy Gans is a professor at Melbourne Law School and is an expert on Victoria criminal law. He told Premier that Pell has a strong chance of winning the appeal on the ground that the verdicts were "unreasonable."

"Pell's lawyers will argue that the jury could not have been satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Pell was guilty based on the word of the surviving victim against 'unchallenged exculpatory evidence' of more than 20 prosecution witnesses," Premier reports.

Gans says, "I think he's likely to win on the unsafe verdict ground. I'm sure whoever loses in the Court of Appeal is going to try to appeal in the High Court. Once it gets to the High Court, things get really unpredictable. They're the least predictable court in Australia."

Shannon Deery, an Australian journalist, says that Pell's legal troubles continue with him also being named in a new lawsuit. The plaintiff alleges he was abused by Ted Bales, a Catholic priest first convicted of abusing boys in Australia in the 1990s. The lawsuit alleges that Pell knew of the abuse and moved Bales from school to school, and failed to protect the plaintiff.