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Nigerian priest convicted in US for s#xually assaulting women seeking spiritual guidance



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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