Anthony Odiong, a Catholic priest, has been convicted by a jury in Texas, United States, for s#xually assaulting women who sought spiritual guidance.
According to The Guardian, the jury in Texas,
consisting of eight women and four men, found Odiong guilty of a two-count
charge of s#xual assault.
Odiong, a priest of the Diocese of Uyo, Akwa Ibom, Nigeria,
risks life imprisonment for the first-degree charge and 20 months in prison for
the second-degree charge.
In 2024, Odiong was arrested after a group of women accused
him of s#xual coercion, unwanted touching and abusive financial control during
his priestly assignment in Waco, a city in Texas, and in the New Orleans suburb
of Luling, Louisiana.
Subsequently, a grand jury in Texas indicted him for charges bordering on s#xual
assault.
TESTIMONIES PRESENTED TO THE JURY
The prosecutors said the police investigation revealed that
the cleric positioned himself as a spiritual adviser to women who were facing
difficult moments in their personal lives.
The Guardian reports that a police investigation revealed
that Odiong had s#xual intercourse with at least one of the women.
The Catholic priest was said to have allegedly pressured
another woman who was in an abusive relationship to allow her then-husband to
sodomise her and later urged her to narrate the experience to him.
One of the victims, identified as Mary Doe, narrated how the
Catholic priest commenced a s#xual relationship with her after he provided her
with spiritual direction amid a tumultuous divorce that left her with primary
custody of seven children.
The victim told the court that her son walked in on her and
Odiong having s#x in her bedroom after a family party.
The child also testified during the trial.
The jurors also heard testimony of how Waco police
investigators obtained DNA evidence establishing that Odiong, in 2023, had
fathered a child with a woman, assigned the pseudonym Presley Jones.
The cleric was said to have provided spiritual direction to
the woman while he was the pastor of St Anthony of Padua church in Luling.
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