A Catholic priest beneath legal investigation for sexual misconduct with a number of girls – and consequently prohibited from ministering in two states – has been charged with illegally possessing little one abuse imagery depicting women.
Anthony Odiong was arrested Tuesday as he was leaving his house in Ave Maria, Florida, on a warrant obtained by police in Waco, Texas, charging him with possessing digital pictures of uncovered genitalia and a nude breast. In line with sworn statements in assist of the arrest warrant that had been obtained by the Guardian, police mentioned they found the illicit photos whereas investigating complaints from at the very least 4 girls that made officers conscious Odiong, 55, may very well be “a possible serial sexual assault suspect”.
The Waco police statements say that at the very least a number of the girls’s complaints are too outdated to prosecute as a consequence of statutes of limitation. However the police mentioned statutes of limitation in Texas are irrelevant if “possible trigger exists to imagine that the defendant has dedicated the identical or comparable intercourse offense towards 5 or extra victims”. And they’ve requested anybody with details about Odiong to contact them as they weigh the potential for charging him with the ladies’s complaints.
Odiong drew media scrutiny that ultimately landed him on the police’s radar in February, when the Roman Catholic diocese of Austin – which administers Waco’s church establishments – revealed he was eliminated of his capacity to minister there in 2019.
That revelation got here almost two months after Louisiana’s most vital diocese had equally suspended him. The suspensions stemmed from complaints by girls – together with two he encountered whereas working at Baylor College in Waco – who publicly accused Odiong of making an attempt to make use of his affect as a priest to pursue sexual contact they both didn’t welcome or couldn’t consent to taking part in.
Texas is certainly one of a few dozen states with a legislation that claims it’s unimaginable for there to be a consensual relationship between clergymen and adults who emotionally rely on their religious recommendation.
And in March, lower than a month after the Guardian revealed a report detailing how the prior allegations towards him ranged from sexual coercion and groping to fiscal abuse, an unidentified particular person walked into the Waco police division and accused Odiong of sexually assaulting her in 2012.
Police subsequently secured judicial permission to entry an e mail account belonging to Odiong and located messages from one other lady who had by no means come ahead explicitly detailing sexual encounters with the priest, together with one the place her colon was injured.
Investigators later spoke with the girl, who “got here ahead to confess that” she had met Odiong beneath “the identical circumstances” and been subjected to a number of the conduct his prior accusers had, in response to the police’s sworn statements.
From there, a choose permitted police to go looking Odiong’s iCloud on-line knowledge storage account. Waco police detective Bradley DeLange later wrote beneath oath that he “found pictures depicting a clearly prepubescent little one in lewd exhibition of her … vagina and pubic area” which had been saved to the account in September 2020.
DeLange mentioned there have been additionally “two pictures of what’s believed to be [another] little one’s breast” with what seems to be an grownup touching the unclothed physique half.
Whereas not one of the pictures present the face of a kid, DeLange mentioned it was evident that at the very least a number of the pictures depicted somebody “beneath 10 years of age which … might improve the eligible punishment which may be assessed”.
McClennan county, Texas, choose Thomas C West on 5 July signed off on DeLange’s request for a warrant to arrest Odiong in reference to the kid abuse imagery, information present. The choose’s recommended bail was $1m.
Makes an attempt to contact an legal professional who has beforehand represented Odiong was not instantly profitable.
It was not instantly clear when Odiong could also be transferred to the custody of Waco police from Immokalee. He can be sentenced to at the very least 15 years in jail if ultimately convicted of possessing little one abuse imagery depicting a minor youthful than 10.
Revival of questions
The costs towards Odiong are virtually sure to revive questions on the way in which Catholic church bureaucrats have managed his profession, which started along with his ordination in Uyo in Nigeria, in 1993.
When it suspended him from ministry in 2019, the Austin diocese didn’t disclose that transfer to the general public – however later the group assured congregants that it had offered notification to Catholic church leaders in south-east Louisiana, the place Odiong was allowed to work till this previous December.
That’s when New Orleans’ archdiocese declared that it had banned Odiong from ministering in its neighborhood, too. The archdiocese emphasised on the time that the allegations towards Odiong solely concerned adults – since Could 2020, the establishment has been in federal chapter court docket making an attempt to dispense of a mound of litigation related to a decades-old clergy little one molestation scandal.
The choice to take away Odiong from New Orleans’s archdiocese was the accountability of the town’s archbishop, Gregory Aymond. As bishop of Austin in an earlier task, Aymond had invited Odiong to minister there starting in 2006.
Aymond later turned archbishop of New Orleans, and he invited Odiong to work there as nicely.
Over time in Texas and Louisiana, Odiong was tasked with working at Baylor’s St Peter Catholic Scholar Middle and at a church in Luling, Louisiana, south-west of New Orleans.
He was capable of construct a loyal following within the US largely by claiming he had a particular understanding with the Virgin Mary by prayer. The charismatic clergyman would maintain so-called therapeutic lots after which some parishioners reported recovering from main medical illnesses, bettering church attendance in addition to boosting his reputation with each congregants and diocesan officers.
However cracks within the public picture Odiong fostered started to type when one lady whom he encountered at Baylor reported him for making an undesirable sexual advance towards her shortly after she emerged from the sacrament of confession.
A second lady whom Odiong met at Baylor then recounted how he pressured her to depart her troubled marriage and enter right into a “religious marriage” with him, at one level forcefully kissing her on the mouth and groping her.
A 3rd lady from Pennsylvania who met Odiong whereas he studied for a grasp’s diploma in theology from Fransiscan College in Ohio alleged that he coerced her into an abusive, cross-state relationship from 2007 by 2018.
She mentioned Odiong pressured her to carry out oral intercourse on him in addition to give him vital sums of cash. She mentioned she couldn’t consent to sexual exercise with Odiong – or willingly give him cash – as a result of he was her religious adviser.
These three girls all ultimately informed their tales to the Guardian in addition to varied church and legislation enforcement officers. Particularly, the third of these girls sought damages from New Orleans’s archdiocese by its chapter proceedings in 2021 whereas additionally reporting him to the sheriff’s workplace which patrols Luling.
A sheriff’s workplace report obtained by the Guardian explains that the New Orleans archdiocese’s common counsel, Susan Zeringue, claimed she was not even given the criticism in query to research till this previous December. The sheriff’s workplace in the end concluded that there was not sufficient proof to ascertain {that a} crime had occurred.
Notably, in contrast to Texas, Louisiana doesn’t mechanically criminalize sexual contact between a priest and an grownup parishioner – in the way in which it does, respectively, between lecturers and college students of age in addition to corrections officers and incarcerated grown-ups, given the inherently imbalanced energy dynamics at play.
Nonetheless, the New Orleans archdiocese revoked Odiong’s permission to minister in its area at that time. And that expulsion garnered sufficient media consideration to set off the Waco police investigation which led to his arrest.
Waco police have since sworn to have established Odiong would inflict sexually abusive acts towards his accusers throughout personal lots he celebrated with them or in periods devoted to religious counseling – all whereas “carrying priest wardrobe gadgets”. He would then talk continually along with his accusers over e mail, Fb and textual content messages, Waco police mentioned in paperwork.
‘All issues shall be revealed’
The case towards Odiong is amongst a number of pending legal issues with hyperlinks to New Orleans’ archdiocese.
A outstanding one facilities on a search warrant that Louisiana state police served on the archdiocese in April as a part of an investigation into whether or not the establishment and its leaders had operated as a child-sex trafficking ring accountable for “widespread sexual abuse of minors relationship again many years” that was “lined up and never reported to legislation enforcement”.
Whether or not Odiong’s arrest attracts a lot curiosity from the Louisiana state troopers investigating the archdiocese with which he most not too long ago labored stays to be seen.
However what Odiong has already made recognized is his defiance to the allegations towards him.
Odiong informed his followers that Austin and New Orleans church officers had run him out over his opposition to Pope Francis’s makes an attempt to be extra welcoming to LGBTQ+ folks, who aren’t allowed to marry inside the Catholic church.
He additionally apparently ignored orders to return to his house diocese of Uyo and brazenly boasted about having plans to work at a Catholic college whose campus is about one mile away from the $400,000 house exterior of which Odiong was arrested.
Odiong was clad in clerical garb when authorities detained him Tuesday.
His most up-to-date Fb put up was an open letter by which he accused the Guardian of finishing up “a false, salacious, one-sided smear marketing campaign” towards him. He additionally mentioned he seemed ahead to pursuing “any and all authorized cures” to clear his identify in addition to to “proceed to faithfully serve God’s folks”.
Odiong’s put up generated almost 180 typically supportive feedback, together with one which implored Odiong to “imagine, in time, all issues shall be revealed, all issues shall be uncovered”.
The Waco police detective investigating Odiong, DeLange, mentioned anybody with data which may be useful to him can attain him by phone at (254) 750-7609.
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