Days after being jailed in Florida on counts of possessing little one abuse imagery, a Roman Catholic priest with ties to south-east Louisiana and Texas has been charged with two counts of sexual assault.
Police in Waco, Texas, introduced the brand new prices towards Anthony Odiong late on Thursday in a press release. It stated a complete of eight victims had come ahead alleging Odiong, 55, tried to make use of his affect as a priest to pursue sexual contact they both didn’t welcome or to which they might not consent.
Texas is one in all a couple of dozen states with a regulation that criminalizes sexual exercise between clergymen and adults who emotionally rely upon their non secular recommendation. Moreover, Texas deems statutes of limitation – or submitting deadlines – irrelevant if a “defendant has dedicated the identical or comparable intercourse offense towards 5 or extra victims”, in line with officers.
The investigation which led to Odiong’s arrest started after the Guardian revealed a report in February detailing prior allegations that ranged from sexual coercion and unwelcome touching to monetary abuse. That report prompted an unidentified particular person to stroll into the Waco police division and accuse Odiong of sexually assaulting her in 2012.
A decide subsequently granted permission for police to entry an e mail account belonging to Odiong and located messages from one other lady who had not come ahead, however explicitly detailed sexual encounters with the priest, together with one which wounded her colon.
Bradley DeLange, a Waco detective, later spoke with the girl, who allegedly confirmed that Odiong had subjected her to a few of the habits his prior accusers had described.
A decide then permitted police to look Odiong’s iCloud knowledge storage account. DeLange later wrote beneath oath he “found photos depicting a clearly prepubescent [disrobed] little one”, which had been saved to the account in September 2020.
DeLange stated there have been two extra photos of who’s believed to be one other little one with somebody who seems to be an grownup touching an unclothed physique half.
Waco police secured a warrant to arrest Odiong, and authorities captured at his house in Ave Maria, Florida, on Tuesday. That day, DeLange issued a press release via his division asking anybody else “victimized by Anthony Odiong anyplace in america” to cooperate along with his investigation.
A number of new accusers had apparently come ahead between Tuesday and Thursday, clearing the best way for the brand new sexual assault prices towards Odiong.
Odiong was ordained within the diocese of Uyo, Nigeria, in 1993. He was invited to work throughout the diocese of Austin, Texas, in 2006 by the then bishop Gregory Aymond. Odiong was then invited to work in Luling, Louisiana, in 2015, about six years after Aymond turned the archbishop of close by New Orleans.
Locations to which his assignments introduced him over time included the St Peter Catholic pupil heart on the outskirts of Baylor College’s campus in Waco in addition to St Anthony of Padua in Luling.
Odiong was in a position to construct a loyal following in Texas and Louisiana largely by claiming to have a particular understanding with the Virgin Mary via 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 recognition with each congregants and diocesan officers.
However Odiong got here beneath scrutiny after his numerous accusers spoke out towards him – together with a Pennsylvania native who reported him to the sheriff’s workplace in Luling, which stated it couldn’t decide the clergyman had dedicated against the law.
The Austin diocese determined to ban Odiong from with the ability to minister in its area in 2019. Its counterparts in New Orleans waited till this previous December to do the identical.
In a press release after Tuesday’s arrest in Ave Maria, the New Orleans archdiocese made it a degree to say the fees towards Odiong “stemmed from allegations reported in Waco”. However on Thursday, a supply with direct information of the investigation advised the Guardian that at the very least one of many new accusers who made attainable Thursday’s sexual assault prices towards Odiong resided locally of Luling, about 22 miles from the archdiocese of New Orleans.
Odiong remained in custody in Florida late Thursday, jail data present. He had been ordered held with out bail. It was not instantly clear when he could also be transferred to Waco.
Makes an attempt to contact an legal professional who has beforehand represented Odiong have been unsuccessful since Tuesday. Earlier than his arrest, Odiong had posted an open letter on social media dismissing the allegations towards him as “a false, salacious, one-sided smear marketing campaign”.
It remained to be seen Thursday whether or not Odiong’s arrest would entice the eye of Louisiana state police troopers who served a search warrant on the archdiocese in April as a part of an investigation into whether or not the church and its native management had operated as a child-sex trafficking ring liable for “widespread sexual abuse of minors relationship again many years” that was then “lined up and never reported to regulation enforcement”.
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