Catholic priest in Texas charged with sexual assault

A Catholic priest has been charged with sexual assault in Texas after multiple victims accused him of sexual and financial abuse, court documents and investigators say.

The priest, Reverend Anthony Odiong, was indicted on Thursday by a grand jury in McLennan County, Texas, on two counts of second-degree sexual assault and one count of first-degree sexual assault.

He was arrested in July in Ave Maria, Florida, when investigators investigating allegations of sexual assault found child pornography on him, according to a Facebook post from Waco police. Odiong was charged with possession of child pornography when he was arrested, but the charge was not included Thursday, according to court documents.

Police had been investigating Odiong for months after receiving “credible information” that he committed a sexual assault in 2012. During the investigation, Detective Bradley DeLange said, police found several women with similar stories of abuse to the original victim who came forward. At least eight women have spoken to police, claiming the priest groped, sexually harassed or financially abused them.

Under Texas law, it is sexual assault for clergy to engage in sexual acts with people who are emotionally dependent on them as “spiritual advisors.”

According to police, Odiong served as a priest at St. Peter Catholic Student Center in Waco, Texas, and St. Mary's Church of the Assumption in West, Texas, from 2007 to 2012. He also served in Luling, Louisiana, from approximately 2015 to 2023.

Odiong was taken to the McLennan County Jail on Aug. 6 and is being held on $2.5 million bail, according to jail records. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of second-degree sexual assault and could face life in prison for the first-degree crime, according to Christopher King, an attorney representing several people in a separate civil case against the priest.

It was not immediately clear whether Odoing had legal counsel who could have asked him for comment.

The Guardian reported on the allegations in February. Odiong denied them in a Facebook post in April, calling them a “false, offensive and one-sided smear campaign.”

Archbishop Gregory Aymond led the Diocese of Austin, Texas, at the beginning of Odiong's time as a priest in that diocese and now leads the Archdiocese of New Orleans, where Odiong has served for the past several years. Bishop Joe S. Vásquez, the current head of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, said in a statement in July that the diocese would cooperate fully with law enforcement.

Sarah McDonald, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans, said Sunday that Odiong served there at the request of the Diocese of Uyo, Nigeria.

“When the Archdiocese became aware of the allegations of criminal activity, we reported him to law enforcement and removed him from ministry,” McDonald said in a text message.

In 2020, the Archdiocese of New Orleans joined more than a dozen Catholic organizations in filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over allegations of sexual abuse against its priests and church staff.

According to a Pennsylvania State Law database, 15 Catholic organizations filed for bankruptcy protection in June.

This summer, a grand jury in Williamson County, Tennessee, indicted priest Juan Carlos Garcia-Mendoza on multiple counts of sexual abuse, child molestation and other related crimes, according to an Instagram post from the city of Franklin, Tennessee. Last year, a grand jury in Louisiana indicted retired priest Lawrence Hecker, who was charged in connection with allegations that he sexually abused a teenager in the 1970s.

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.